


Everything

by morgansoul



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Death, Drama, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Romance, F/F, Feelings, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Lesbian disasters, Post-Battle of Sodden Hill, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Suicide, Torture, Yennaia, everything
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:53:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 42,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26998498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgansoul/pseuds/morgansoul
Summary: From one day to another, the rectoress of Aretuza has disappeared without leaving a single clue to find her. After months missing, Yennefer shows up at the school, looking for her and all she discovers is a vandalized room and an abandoned pendant.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Sabrina Glevissig/Triss Merigold, Tissaia de Vries/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 69
Kudos: 69





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Everything](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26993533) by [morgansoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgansoul/pseuds/morgansoul). 



> Surely I will update so often, because as much as I love the pairing, I will only write about them when I feel like I can give them the best, as they deserve. I ask you to be very patient with me, as with the other fics I have on hands.
> 
> Any comment or constructive criticism is welcome <3

"What do you mean, he's not here?! "

  


Yennefer's voice seemed to rumble in all the corridors of Aretuza, laden with uncertainty and despair. Several months had passed since the Battle of Sodden Hill and, in all that time, the sorceresses had been trying to find her, as well as recovering from the hard blow that victory entailed.

During those months Tissaia had been training a new generation of mages, while she spent every last second of her free time searching the school library, traveling in seek of answers, or doing anything that many would have deemed inappropriate; and, when Yennefer had finally returned, the woman was gone.

  


"Yen, you have to calm down," Triss placed a hand on her friend's shoulder and fixed her gaze on her violet eyes.

  


"It's also not like screaming is going to make her appear, you know. She’s been gone for days," murmured Sabrina, who had sat down, still quite weak.

  


"Oh, great! And what do you want me to do?! To have some tea?! I need to talk to Tissaia!"

  


And it was true, for since chaos had returned her from the limbo in which she had been living all that time, there was only one thing she could think of, a mistake she regretted, a step she did not take. Although at first she had feared that the rectoress had not survived at the end of the battle, she now knew that this was not the case, that moment of hope began to fade due to the absence of that tiny woman.

  


"I'll go in anyway! She’s not ignoring me anymore," she finally stated before dodging Triss and pushing the doors that overlooked the rectoress’ room.

  


"Yen!"

  


By the time Triss was able to grab the brunette's arm, both leaves of the door were wide open, resulting in an empty and completely shattered room. Sabrina and Triss exchanged a look of surprise, which soon became concern. Neither had been able to access Tissaia's cameras, for at the door there was a powerful spell that kept it closed to everyone; well, everyone but Yennefer, it seemed. Besides, neither of them expected that the first thing her eyes contemplated of that stay was a stage worthy of a wild battle.

  


"What...?" Now Yennefer's voice was little more than a pitched whisper as he entered the room.

  


The desk was flipped and split in half, the bed sheets torn —resulting in claw marks—the curtains also seemed almost ripped off, so the moonlight flooded the room irregularly, at least a dozen books lying on the ground, remnants of broken pages throughout the room, robes of all kinds peeking out of closets and drawers, as well as on the floors, remains of glass, ink, quills and various liquids, probably potions. However, what caught Yennefer's attention was none of that, if not the only magic footprint strongly enough that she sensed. It was almost like a ring in the back of her head. She approached, slowly, to the split desk and crouched down to rummage through the remains, until her fingertips grazed somewhat warm.

  


When Yennefer raised it, up to the height of her eyes, the necklace Tissaia always wore spun around, the ruby of the center flashing slightly in the face of the reflection of the moonlight. The Crest of Aretuza was now far away from her rectoress… It almost seemed like the worst crime imaginable for the mages.

  


Tissaia never took off that pendant.

  


With shaky hands, Yennefer passed the chain over her head and left the crest resting on her own chest. The feeling it gave her was warm and reminded her, inevitably, of the one the rectoress produced just by looking at her. Throughout that time, Yennefer had been so focused on finding any trace of the tiny woman that she had completely forgotten the existence of her friends behind her. That's why Triss limb hand on her shoulder startled her to the point of forcing her to jump, turning to her in a defensive position.

  


Seconds later, once the situation was processed by Yennefer’s mind, her body relaxed and a small smile of apology was drawn on her lips.

  


"I'm sorry, Triss... I'm not used to being approached in the back with good intentions," she offered, as an apology.

  


"Okay, I get I," she did it, in a way, more or less, "she always had a clear preference for you".

  


"What? Nonsense, that woman always hated me, " or at least that's what she'd thought for about a century, what had kept her away, the reason she'd never decided to be brave until, clearly, it was too late. However, Sabrina's laughter took her by surprise, "what's wrong with you, now?"

  


"And I thought with those beautiful eyes you could see past your nose," the golden-haired woman leaned against the door frame, "from the moment you arrived, the rectoress only had eyes for you. If any of us had been half slow learning that you, now we'd be eels".

  


Yennefer could not take Sabrina's point, she herself had seen what was going on with sorceresses who did not meet her teacher's standards. But, still, she didn't understand how they could say that of the woman who had always taken care of being as hard and cruel as possible with her, of turning her into what she was now.

  


"She always called me _piglet_ , she bought me, treated me like the worst mage in history".

  


"And she didn't punish you at any time, she kept you from dying on your first night, he had patience with you for years..." Triss frowned, why couldn't he see what was so obvious? "Not to mention that she preferred to spend the night before the battle with you instead of Villgefortz, when it was clear that he had spent years trying to flirt and court her.

  


Neither woman overlooked the grimace on Yennefer's face, before the last comment.

  


"Perhaps she wasn't interested in him..." Yennefer murmured, ignoring the resigned sigh of Sabrina, who chose to start searching the place, believing that it would be more useful than that conversation, "and the rest of it just proves that she was a great teacher and cared about her students".

  


"No, all it proves is that she cared about you, Yennefer, you're the only one who's been able to get into his room!" While speaking, Triss moved the hand she had on Yennefer’s shoulder to he own chest.

  


"That's not true, you're in."

  


Sabrina crouched down to take some papers off the floor and keep an eye on them. She frowned, as she caught a few more, wanting to continue her reading, despite knowing she shouldn’t. They looked like notes of some kind, manuscripts by Tissaia herself.

  


"We got in because you opened the door, Yen. Sabrina and I have been trying since she disappeared, looking to find out what happened to her," resigned, Triss went further into the room. She raised a hand to turn on the lights, but only a few candles lit, for the rest was shattered.

  


"Surely she didn't protect her room from me because she thought I was dead. Can we stop arguing over something so silly?"

  


"Yennefer, Tissaia didn't protect her room from you because she'd been looking so long for a way to bring you back that all she expected was to see you coming through that dor" Sabrina's tone of voice had changed, now it was more serious and severe, as if she were suddenly upset.

  


Instinctively, Yennefer moved her left hand to the rectoress’ pendant, as if that could protect her from the mage’s bad mood.

  


"Sabrina, honey, what's going on? Triss left the book she had taken and approached the blonde, kneeling beside her. She passed an arm over her shoulders and pressed her against herself, before Sabrina gave her a page she had been reading before.

  


They were not exactly notes, those papers, at least not magical, nor academic, but in the remains of the sheet, among smeared ink, they were different phrases readable. However, it was a lonely sentence that caught the brunette's attention:

  


  


> _“I can't do it without her, I never could and I never will”._
> 
>   
> 

On their own, those words seemed to make little sense, so she continued to read, deducing some of the words.

  


  


> _“She's gone because of me and I should pay any price to bring her back. She hated me and yet came when I asked her for help... I asked her to come, I never told her why, I should have told her how I felt before it was too late, before I lost her for good... I couldn't give her what she wanted, what she needed, what she deserved, but now I'll never get a chance to do it”._

  


Triss looked up, mouth open and eyes wide and shocked, until she fixed her gaze on Sabrina's orbs, totally stunned. Leaving aside that they had just read the personal diary of Tissaia de Vries and that they could think themselves as dead people if by any chance the Arch-Mistress found out about it, the content of this was... Revealer? Predictable? Well, it certainly was much more detailed that some exchanged words between the two mages on the past.

  


You didn't have to be the smartest person in the world to deduce that the relationship between Yennefer and Tissaia was very different from the one either woman had with the rest, but from there to read from Tissaia's handwriting, insinuations like those...

  


"Are you going to tell me what it says on those papers or does the cat have your tongue?" Exasperated, Yennefer approached them, intending to take the pages, but Sabrina took them all and put them out of reach.

  


"You can't read this, Yennefer, it doesn't say anything on where the rectoress is".

  


"And that's why you both had to read it for? I don't buy it, give me that".

  


Sabrina did not give her the opportunity to take them, sprouting some flames from her fingers to the paper.

  


"Sabrina! " Triss, petrified, looked at the ashes beginning to fall, "you can't burn her diary!"

  


"Does the great Tissaia de Vries have a diary?" Yennefer, between skeptical and annoying, let out a mocking laugh, "and what did she put on? Her torrid nights with Vilgefortz?"

  


"For someone who presumes to be such a good sorceress, you're a fucking bitch".

  


That's all Sabrina said, before leaving Tissaia’s chambers, without bothering to look back. Yennefer, with both eyebrows raised, deviated her attention from the blonde to Triss, letting some confusion be seen. What was her problem now?

  


"You know what's wrong with her? She almost seems to be in love with Tissaia or something," even though it was just a joke, that possibility left her with an unpleasant aftertaste in her mouth and a disturbing feeling in her body.

  


"Yes, I know what's wrong with her, but he's right that sometimes you're a little... "

  


"Fucking bitch, she said fucking bitch”.

  


"Yes, that... " Triss sighed, "after the battle, when she surrendered and stopped looking for you among the corpses, she used all the chaos she had left to heal me and restore Sabrina" the woman's voice had become softer and more melancholic, it was noted that those were hard words to pronounce for her, and more difficult memories to recall, "she was already hurt, but she still absorbed my worst wounds and also Sabrina’s, I could have survived, but she didn’t mind… She was practically dead".

  


Yennefer's stomach was an empty pi by then. Tissaia saved Sabrina's life when Yennefer had given her friend for dead. Tissaia had absorbed the wounds of the three sorceresses who had been present in that room, very few moments ago, and had survived to tell the tale. Tissaia had saved three lives even risking hers and Yennefer had not been able to show a minimum of respect for the rectoress, for what she had done, for all she owed her… And worst of all, Tissaia could have died and Yennefer wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it.

  


Once, a long time ago at Rinde, the brown-haired woman had asked her what she did she want. Yennefer had been so angry with her that she was not able to tell her the truth, not directly, anyway... But she couldn't help but think that if she had, maybe things would be different now... Maybe she'd know where to look for her or what happened to her.

  


Triss stood up and took a slow breath.

  


"I'll go get Sabrina, but you should apologize to her. After Tissaia saved her, she feels she will never be able to pay her debt to her and now that she has disappeared..."

  


"She feels guilty, yes, I know the feeling" Yennefer nodded and turned her back on Triss as she left the room and closed both leaves of the door behind her.

  


Once alone, the brunette started wandering around the room, paying attention and care to what she stepped on. The first of the tears soon made its way through the moisture of her orbs and rolled down her cheek, fast and lonely. Yennefer clinged more tightly to Tissaia's medallion, even as the edges marked on it started hurting her palm. She managed to reach the rectoress’ bed and sit on it, before the first sob escaped her throat, followed by several more and a very considerable amount of tears.

  


"Tissaia... Where are you? Why aren't you here?" Words piled up in her mind and very few managed to pass through her lips "I did what you asked me to do, I forgot the bottle, I saved those people. What good is that to me? What do I want a legacy for, if you're not here to see it?" She had to swallow several times the knot that had formed in her throat, before she ended up lying on Tissaia’s bed —which still kept the soft scent of the woman, jasmine, almond and something Yennefer was unable to point out— and she snuggled up in a fetal position, with even more tears flooding her face, "you can't leave. You're my everything".


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I won't lie. I am hyped too and your comments made me want to keep going with the story, so here you have a second chapter.
> 
> I am also curious for any theories you may have, if you do.

The cold was almost worse than the darkness.

Under her body, the hard, icy stone was nailed to every inch of the skin that had been exposed against the surface. The woman knew that asking for help would be of no use, for no one would come, had they listened to her or not.

Her mother had abandoned her at birth, her father had been abusing her since could remember, her friends were dead, or had ended up hating her... There was no one out there who would come looking for her or who would her cries of pain.

Blood covered her face, much of her body and the remains of her gown. Lacerating wounds made their way across her back; deep, torn cuts, caused by the paws of the wolf standing in front of her, threatening. Only the amber glow of its eyes was visible in the middle of the darkness. At what point had he stopped chasing Máni?

She tried to move, but the forces seemed to escape her body, just as the blood did. Hati growled, warning her not to even try.

How did this all begin?

* * *

Magic is to control Chaos, but to control Chaos, you must first control yourself. That was the basic principle that Tissaia taught all her students in the first lessons. One thing in exchange for another, control by control.

So… What about one life in exchange for another? Would that be possible?

Tissaia took her diary and wet the nearest quill in ink, then, elegantly sliding the tip of it onto the paper, she began to write.

> _"I know I should never have told Yennefer to come with us, I should never have endangered her life, even if that led the Continent to its own destruction._
> 
> _Gods, at what point did I become more concerned about one of my students than about the welfare of the Continent and the order of Chaos? I should never have been so weak, I should never have lost control and given up into my impulse, I should have never f..."_

Tissaia crossed out the sentence without even finishing to write it, while a solitary tear poured down her cheek to fall on the ink and diluted it even more.

> _"She saved my life, she had no reason, but still, she did. She had enough control to do it, I know she's strong and she must be somewhere, I just have to find out where. I should never have doubted her, how strong she was, what she could do. I should have told her how proud I was of what she had accomplished before it was too late. She's gone because of me, and I should pay any price to bring her back. She hated me, I know she did and yet she came when I asked her for help. Her heart is too pure, so her magic is so powerful, so she was always my best student. I can live with her hate, but I can’t live with her death"._

A new tear reached the paper, making several of the words written on it difficult to read. The woman didn't care, since she never read what she wrote in that journal, she simply did it to free her mind from the thoughts that assaulted her day and night; she had done so for centuries and would continue to do so as long as it helped her. With her shaky hand, Tissaia held the Crest of Aretuza. The magic it exuded calmed her down, it reminded her that she had to control herself, not to let her emotions dominate her, not let anyone know she had them.

For someone like her, hiding her feelings or pretending she didn't have them was as difficult a task as catching the moon. She had never known why, but somehow, everything affected her much more than the rest, anything was too personal. It was something that she had spent centuries trying to explain and hide at once. Aretuza's stoned and cruel rector was nothing more than a lie, a facade that anyone alive knew. After all, she had no family, no friends, and no one had the courage to get close enough to her to discover something as personal as this. Well, almost no one, but in that particular case, Tissaia thought, the bond that binded them was opposite depending on which side you looked, because _she_ hated her.

She ended up setting the quill aside and using her free hand to remove the remains of saltwater left on her cheek. She couldn't cry, Tissaia de Vries didn't cry, she didn't have feelings, even when a certain pupil of hers was trying to force them to death. The air slowly left the mage's lungs, guilt had made the constant weight of her chest become even heavier and more suffocating, as if looking for the best way to strangle her. The candlelight and fire dimmed as Tissaia lay on the seat behind the desk and closed her eyes, only bathed by moonlight. She missed her, more than she had in all the decades she'd gone through without seeing her.

* * *

When the mage opened her eyes, reddened and swollen by crying, she noticed her hand felt numb, probably by the force with which she had been holding the crest all that time. The moonlight had been replaced by the dim rays of the rising sun. Her whole body was tense and sore, not just because she ended up sleeping on the seat, but because of the seizures the sobs had caused her. She had dreamed of her, so now she missed her even more; she needed to get her back, whatever the price was. So fuck Destiny, she wasn't going to abandon her again.

Yennefer let go of the pendant and stood up to stretch. Tissaia's room was still shattered, even though she could already remove from her “to do” list "sleeping in the rectoress’ armchair"; for some reason, she had not wanted to do it in her bed, not without her there, anyway. She felt like an intruder invading the place, entering Tissaia's last safe and intimate space, where she clearly didn’t match nor belong.

She didn't even bother to try to pick up that disaster, prioritizing her own appearance and hygiene. If Triss and Sabrina went back there and discovered her in that state, they would draw conclusions that Yennefer preferred to be buried within her own mind, even if even she was not able to deal with them just yet. It took her short time, but her mind managed to silence much of the thoughts that flooded, managing to concentrate on mundane tasks. With her best face, a new dress and hair pulled up in a French braid on the right, the crest almost looked like one more part of her outfit, rather than something she had found on the floor.

However, in her eyes it was visible something different from the night before, something quite close to fear. Would it be because of the dream? It had seemed more real than any other product of the sorceress’ imagination... Surely it was that closeness to reality that made it deep down, Yennefer feared that Tissaia would be that woman lying on the ground, in front of a huge wolf. She had not seen her face nor anything else but the amber eyes, for the darkness of the moonless night seemed to be consummating her, but she knew that the woman of her dream was wounded, that she was there. Yennefer had been able to smell the blood and almost feel the wounds as if they were in her own body. Should she attach such importance to a stupid dream?

Surely, she would have if the noise of the door being opened hadn't startled her the way it did. Only one of the leaves moved to make way for a depleted Triss and a, still annoyed, Sabrina. The first of the two sorceresses walked directly to the chipped remains of the chairs, which had once been placed in front of the rector's desk, and fixed them instantly with some magic, before dropping heavily on one of them, saying nothing. Sabrina came closer to the healer, loaded with a tray where a teapot, three cups, biscuits and sandwiches lay, so Triss didn't take too long to return the desk to its original state so she could place it on it.

"Have you spent the night here?" Triss looked at the kettle while Sabrina served the liquid in the cups, the second one did not even look at Yennefer.

"I... " She sighed, with the intention of avoiding answering, "I am very sorry for what I said yesterday, Sabrina, I did not want to hurt your feelings. I was very nervous and... I didn't watch my words".

"It's not about my feelings, Yennefer," the blonde sat in the second chair, unable to understand how her friend could be so obtuse when she proposed, but she had no right to reveal the secrets of the rectoress.

"Sure... But, still, I'm sorry, seriously," with slow movements, she came up to the pale, thin figure of the woman and placed a hand on her shoulder, affectionately. She didn't want to lose her two best friends, no matter the circumstances and whether she had to swallow some of her pride.

"I didn’t know you knew that word," Sabrina's grip on her hand drew a small smile to Yennefer lips, as well as some peace that relieved the pressure on her chest. Triss, for the first time since they had entered, smiled widely, took her cup and relaxed in the chair.

"Have you found anything?"

After clearing her throat, Yennefer denied.

"I... Uhm... I haven't started looking yet".

"We have work ahead of us, then," the blonde took her own cup, before she curled her lips on a half-smile and wearing her best mocking tone, she teased her friend," you better have a quick breakfast, you're not always going to be able to stay behind us".


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the kudos and the comments, they really make me happy and give me more hype to write! Hope you like this chapter. I'll try to post at least once a week <3

The days passed too quickly for the judgment of the three mages who had engaged in the search for their former teacher. Each of them had found a way to make a bond with Tissaia, at some point in their lives; however cold, cruel and hard she was on many occasions, they all knew that the only reason they had gotten to where they were was her.

Sabrina was the best at dealing with Stregobor, possibly because her neckline distracted him enough to set aside vital issues, such as the delicate position of those who disobeyed The Chapter; however, every time the three women met in the now-ordered rectoress' office, it was always necessary to give the woman several minutes so she could calm down. She had had enough of that man for her whole life after the first day holding his intense and lascivious gaze.

"It makes me sick, I don't know how Tissaia was able to deal with him," those were the words that broke the silence established between the three of them, and he does whatever the fuck he wants with the rest of The Chapter. How can they be so useless? They are supposed to protect us and he’s going to destroy all of us".

Triss did not stop the movements of her hands and continued to intertwine some strands of golden hair with each other. The closeness and warmth that this process offered was too pleasant, so she wasn’t going to let it go until she had no choice. Yennefer changed her position on the rectoress' seat, taking off her gaze from the page that had caught her seconds ago; she understood how her friend felt, so he offered her a little knowing smile.

"Such a pity it is that killing him is not a viable alternative..." She wrinkled her nose at the thought that crossed her mind "I'm sure that if we did something this stupid, we could lift her from the grave and she would still be disappointed enough to ground us".

"It doesn't sound that bad... Killing him to see if we find her is the best plan we have until no--Auch!" Sabrina turned on herself to look at Triss, who had decided that pulling her hair was the best thing she could do to reproach her.

"Can you think as the two mature women of almost a century of life you are?"

Yennefer took a hand to the pendant resting on her chest, distractedly. Those words had sounded very close to what _she_ would have said _._

"Says the one that pulled my hair!"

"For talking nonsense!"

"In defense of Sabrina... It was my idea," both women turned to Yennefer with their eyebrows raised in surprise. "What? I too acknowledge my guilt," in the face of the skeptical gaze both of them gave her, she added, "sometimes".

The last word drew a gentle laugh from all of them. The sound was pleasant and gave them some inner peace, as laughing was not something they used to do very often since the last six months. Triss denied and took back the locks of hair she had been forced to let go after the tug she had given them.

"But really... It's horrible, he almost doesn't seem to see anything but my body, as if a woman was nothing but that," she sighed, "sometimes I feel like I would have to use Tissaia's clothes so he listens to me and still he wouldn't".

"I can't imagine anyone not listening to her," Yennefer said, in a whisper, but she couldn’t imagine anyone taking their eyes off Tissaia either.

"Maybe it was for men like him that she became so..."

"Terrifying?" Sabrina offered.

"Cold?" Yennefer tried.

"Cruel?"

"Sex...," Yennefer coughed, due to the betrayal of her subconscious, …rious?"

Both mages looked at her for a few seconds, silently, then looked at each other and Triss noded.

"I was going to say serious, yes, but I'm glad you trust us enough to be honest," she didn't say it with bad intentions, but with love and concern.

"I don't know what you're talking about," the brunette proudly raised her chin.

"Yenna... Nevermind," Triss sighed.

"No, not _Yenna_ , and yes, it does mind" Sabrina turned to face her, serious, "it offends me that you consider us so stupid all the time, Yennefer of Vengerberg," she waited for the braid to be secured with a black cord, to get up and near the desk, raising a hand to point directly at the brunette, more specifically, to the crest. "You can't expect to come here, to spend day and night in her office, to put on her pendant, not moving out of her armchair" Sabrina rested her palms on the desk, "having your chaos so scattered that you distract both of us, and pretending that two of the people who know you best are deaf, blind and foolish".

Yennefer had frozen in the seat, her lips clenched in a thin line, her heart pumping blood very quickly, in the face of the danger that she found so suddenly exposed. The only thing she wanted right now was to open a portal and run away, but she couldn’t, not when she had to help _her_. This time, there was no running away. Yennefer herself knew that she had been reckless —she left her feelings slip out of her control— and, sooner or later, they would begin to suspect, but that had been too quick and sudden. The hand that still held the pendant trembled, but the warmth of another hand upon it stopped her; Triss had approached without her noticing and gifted her a warm soft smile. The mage seemed to have a special ability to heal much more than physical wounds, for only in doing so did she manage to make her feel better. Maybe she'd noticed? Would she have inadvertently transferred her thoughts to her? Panic began to make its way back through her chest and her hand started to tremble again.

"Excuse Sabrina," Triss said, as she fulminated the one with one look, before squeezing the brunette’s hand, "we had agreed not to say anything until we had solved all this," with her free arm, she gestured around her to encompass the place, earning a confused look from Yennefer, "oh, yes, she's right about what she said, we're not that stupid. But what I mean is that it wasn't the time, or the ways to talk about it," again, she gently squeezed Yennefer's hand, without removing her own just yet. "You don't have to talk about this or to tell us anything, but we're going to be here if you decide to do it at any time... Now, have you found any new tracking spells?"

No one answered Triss' question for the first thirty seconds, until it was the blonde who shook her head.

"None that worked... Which reminds me that Stregobor didn’t ask about her today either".

"I don't have any that works either," Yennefer finally murmured, leaving the book on the desk, still not looking at her friends, "but I have a feeling there's something here that isn’t right... Stregobor should be using Tissaia's absence to make a fool of her in front of the Chapter and try to get her away from it and the Brotherhood. He's been trying forever, so I don't understand why when he gets his golden chance, he lets it go like nothing".

"What if...?" Triss didn't finish the question, but it wasn't necessary for them to understand what she meant.

A new silence was established in the rectoress’ office. It wasn't an awkward silence, like the last one, but it was very heavy and tense. For any normal person, everything was in order and calm, there was nothing special about the silence in the room; for someone who looked at all the details, the three women were tense, which could be seen in the position of their shoulders, how tighten their jaws were or how they clung to any object; for a sorceress familiar to Chaos, the office was an incessant whirlwind of disorder and uncontrolled magic, created from the mixture of magic and emotions of each of the mages present. After all, no silence was an absolute silence. And, in this particular one, the interaction between the Chaos of each sorceress said more than any word.

‘ _We can't trust anyone,_ ’ was what Sabrina conveyed.

_‘We must stick together,’_ Triss said.

_‘I'm going to kill him,’_ and _‘we'll find her at any price,_ ’ emanated Yennefer's.

None of the three mages moved or articulated a word at first, though, eventually, Triss took a seat; Sabrina was right, they couldn't trust anyone, and if someone had been able to take Tissaia out of her own office, what kept him from listening to his conversations? The blonde was the first to begin transferring her thoughts, something not surprising to either of the other two women present. They knew it would be much safer that way.

‘ _If he’s done anything to her..._ ’

Triss took Sabrina's hand and gave her a gentle squeeze, looking for a way to soothe her; however, the golden-haired woman only seemed to get more upset with the contact, being forced to stop sharing her thoughts so as not to make a fool of herself, while Triss withdrew her hand, shyly. Yennefer, unable to overlook that, curved a sneering, silent half smile, despite the real topic of conversation.

"I think we have a lot to talk about," he said _aloud,_ before adding ‘ _if anyone listens to us, we cannot let them know that we suspect from that filthy rat Stregobor is,’_ that thought was accompanied by several explicit images of different types of torture that the brunette believed she could apply to the mage.

"Yennefer!” Triss's face was quite a poem, so the violet-eyed one quickly began to think of different flowers. "Don't do that, it's disgusting... Oh, a dragon fruit flower, they're beautiful! Did you know they only bloom for one night?"

Sabrina raised both eyebrows, mentally noting the data, while Yennefer settled slowly; there was no better way to calm down the healer than showing her flowers, but there was another reason why she had selected that flower, influenced by where they were.

‘ _They_ _are her favorites,’_ Yennefer looked at Aretuza's Crest again, thinking ‘s _he always said_ _that sometimes a flower was just a flower, but many times she thought there were flowers that were anything but that very thing. So, I once asked her why she was lying to us and she told me, and I’ll quote her: to stay the fuck out of her fucking mind,"_ she smiled, her lips giving a sad look. ‘ _I think that was the only time I heard her curse or that I saw her upset, without a disaster or massacre in between_ ’.

_‘Did you read her thoughts?’_ Sabrina seemed on the verge of collapse, but the sorceress shrugged in response.

_‘And she told you what his favorite flower was? Aw, that's so cute,’_ the brunette kept smiling, loving the new topic of conversation, ‘ _now I understand_ _why you burned the bouquet of roses that Vilgefortz brought her yesterday.’_

Vilgefortz had come the day before the rectoress' office in search of the woman and intending to woo her; however, he encountered three of her pupils gathered in her office and a rather violent situation, in which an awkward and tense silence was included. Finally, seeing that none of the three women seemed to intend to leave the room or tell him where Tissaia was, the sorcerer asked them to give that bouquet of red roses—too cliché, according to Yennefer—to the rectoress', on his behalf. None of the three moved to take the flowers, so Vilgefortz left them on the desk before leaving the office in a way that Triss categorized as "terrified of an incredible amount of overprotection." None of the three women said anything, but the next morning, the roses were little more than ashes in the chimney, something they didn't ask about.

_‘Well, she didn't tell me, I... I just know,’_ Yennefer shrugged and smiled at the memory, then she defended her own actions, ‘h _e wanted to give her red roses! She hates red roses!’_ Suddenly outraged, Yennefer lay down in the seat.

_‘How do you know that?’_ At that point, Triss could no longer help but ask, too curious for the mix of romance and flowers, ‘ _Tissaia wasn’t the type that goes around telling those things’._

_‘Well, because I know! Of course she hasn't told me any of that’._

_‘Yenna... What's your favorite color?’_ Sabrina's mental voice seemed fascinated, though she did not share why.

_‘Violet, why?’_

_‘Does she like animals?’_

_‘Of course, she loves them, especially birds, skylarks are her favorite’._

_‘And you haven't had any conversations with her where she told you, have you?’_ Sabrina continued to stare at the brunette, even when she refused to hold eye-contact.

_‘That's weird,’_ Triss added, _‘you're not supposed to be able to read the mind of a mage as powerful as she is’._

_‘I haven't read her mind, ok? I am not a stalker! Why would I want to know that she likes to read in front of the fireplace when it rains or that she prefers a pitcher of beer over a glass of whisk-? This doesn't make_ _sense_ ,’ the last words sounded much lower than the previous ones, softer and pensive.

_‘No, it doesn't,’_ Triss stopped looking at Yennefer, to look at Sabrina, _‘what are you thinking? You are asking her because you know what happens, right?’_

Sabrina nodded, ‘ _Yenna, trust me and answer without thinking... where is Tissaia?_ ’ Both brunettes were stunned by the question, but the answer soon emerged from one of them.

_‘I don't know, but it's cold, she’s hurt and the flame is being consumed,’_ Yennefer frowned, where had all that come from?

_‘Eadem,’_ Sabrina lay down in the chair, joining both hands on her own lap. Faced with the confused gaze of two women, she hastened to clarify ‘ _fatum unitum... It's an event that doesn't happen very often... We studied it decades ago, don't you remember?’_ When a denial was all he got, _‘Gods, now I understand Tissaia’s frustration’_ she sighed, ‘ _it is not common, but sometimes two people are born with linked destinies. They may be not born at the same time or in the same kingdom, but they’ll always find each other, they are meant to be together in any way the feel like. Eventually, when both met, the bond between these two people is so strong that nothing can separate them. I mean, Destiny links those two people, so it also makes sure no one tries to break the union. When two eadem met, the bond begins to activate and strengthens over time; for two mortals, it would only be an intense relationship, but for two sorceresses...’_

_‘It would be a magical_ _thing_ ,’ Triss said, leaving Sabrina’s face to nail her sight to the violet orbs, _‘do you feel anything special?’_

Yennefer didn't say, or think anything, not until she had shielded her own mind so that neither her friends nor anyone could know what was going on with her. The last thing she needed was to have the feeling that her most secret thoughts were exposed in any way; not when a truth like that had been revealed. She’s ben denying her feelings for so long that it’s too difficult to think about them being real.

"I think it's best if we keep looking for spells... " Yennefer's voice didn't shake, but it was slightly weaker than usual.

"All right, we'll go through the library again," Sabrina stood up, but seeing that she was the only one, she took Triss's arm and pulled her. "See you after dinner, don't kill anyone".

Before the mages reached the door, they heard Yennefer's voice behind them. They did not stop, but crossed the threshold and, with the last word, closed the door behind them.

"I promise nothing..." The sorceress settling in the armchair and closed her eyes, she needed a few seconds to calm down and think.

Did she feel anything special? Maybe so, but not something new, not something that would have been different from how she has felt about her teacher for decades. Her feelings for Tissaia could be special, but they had nothing to do with a bond predestined or forced by her stupid Destiny; they had absolutely nothing to do with how she felt about Geralt, for example, which was pretty uncomfortable and violent. Thanks to the Witcher, she knew very well what it was like to be attracted to a person because of a wish, of magic, but with Tissaia it was different. She had been in love with Tissaia for so long that she did not even remember when admiration became a lustful attraction and attraction became love, but now that she stopped to think about it seriously... Maybe not, maybe it was not love, just a product of her mind, a consequence of missing her or knowing that she was in danger. She could not be in love with that cruel, cold and bitter rectoress who had made her life impossible during her first years of residence in Aretuza; who had refused to help her when she knew that regaining her choice about having children was all she wanted; the same woman who looked at her with disapproval… But she was also the same person who had saved her life on more than three occasions, who had taught her that she could achieve anything she set out to do if she was able to fight for it; who had given her the tools to manage her own destiny and protected her until the last moment; who had looked right at her eyes, thinking she would die, and had smiled, because it was fine if it was Yennefer who killed her... Because she was still thinking that the younger mage hated her, because she loved her back.

_"You still have so much left to give_ "

Tissaia's voice managed to take her breath away, even if it was just a memory in her mind. What did she mean with that? Yennefer remembered how annoyed and outraged the sorceress had sounded back then, even though her face was pretty neutral. At first she had thought that she was angry because she disliked and was disappointed at the course that her worst student's life had taken, but between her friends' words and the possibilities that now were open at her eyes.. Maybe there was something else, something Yennefer couldn't see, but she did know was there.

She took the left hand to her chest again, to caress the pendant tenderly. What was it that escaped between her fingers when she almost started rubbing it? It could be... It may have been some kind of coded message from Tissaia, in case she ever needed to find her, but that had no sense; perhaps she had meant to tell her that she trusted her chaos to find her. After all, what else did Yennefer have to offer, if it wasn't her magic? Perhaps there was a chance that Sabrina was right, a chance for her to be truly loved, but if it wasn’t real, if she trusted it and it was wrong, it would break her. Real or not, she was going to find Tissaia, she was going to save her as she saved her so many times before.

Too distracted with her thoughts to even stop looking at the pendant, the small disturbance of the chaos that originated in the rectoress' office went unnoticed by Yennefer in a brazen and ridiculous way.

Surely, the mistake would cost her much more than anyone could imagine in the first instance.

As he walked through the corridors of Aretuza, with his mind full of useful information, one of his best gala suits and a high proud chin, Stregobor smiled victoriously and looked over his shoulder at any sorcerer he encountered. Soon they would all be finished, soon the Brotherhood would dissolve and he would take control of the sorcerers and destroy Aretuza, as he had agreed with Nilfgaard and with _him._ That time, that insightful and ridiculously powerful bitch wouldn't stop him. Besides, those three girls were completely stupid if they thought that by transferring their thoughts so obviously, he wouldn't have gotten everything he needed to know before they started doing it. They just had doomed their rectoress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... Many things are happening and everybody has a lot of secrets in this school.
> 
> Next one will include torture, so I warn you in case I forget latter.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there's a little bit of grafic description and blood in this chapter.
> 
> Also I know I said I would upload a chapter once a week, but I was inspired these days and I needed to write what crossed my mind. Sorry and I hope you like this, all mistakes on my own, like always.

"I hope you're comfortable," a male voice sounded throughout the room, coming from no particular direction, "if I'm honest, you're very small compared to what I expected from you".

"That's what expectations have, so it's not good to get carried away by them" although words left a woman's lips with more awkwardness than usual, as a result of her altered breathing and the various wounds her body had, her tone was still as scathing as ever, "for example, you look like a dwarf and a coward to me, but since you have not even shown me your face, I can only confirm the latest".

The changing shadows of the room moved just enough so that the female could identify the exact point, behind her back, where the one who spoke to her was hiding, under a cloak of darkness. All were jagged shadows on a cool, hard-looking bluish grey stone. The only light present was in front of the woman, illuminating her figure —only covered by the remnants of what had once been a short-sleeved white nightgown— and some space around it; it was a magical flame that she had no idea how had got there. The chains that held her body suspended over a meter from the ground—the painfully tight dimeritium shackles against her wrists, causing lacerations on them—were lost in the blackness of the room, as did the drops of scarlet blood that glided through the pale skin of the prisoner.

"Tissaia de Vries," the owner of that voice uttered each word with petulance and disdain, reducing the distance between her figure and the unbecoming, "the great mage, rectoress of Aretuza, powerful sorceress, arch-mistress, Skylark... The last half," if visible at the time, their factions would have reflected satisfaction at the woman's lack of knowledge of that last title.

Without giving her a chance to ask any questions, the shadow man slid the edge of a very beautiful knife down the back of the mage, making sure to traverse in a downward and diagonal motion what looked like a birthmark between the shoulder blades of the mage. The mark resembled a geometric shape that gathered two right angles from the junction of the lines that made them up, it was small, no more than four centimeters and slightly lighter in tone than the nive white normally presented by Tissaia's skin, which was now redened by the number of bleeding and inflamed wounds that her anatomy presented. The cut ripped off an agonizing, weary cry from the chestnut, who wasn't even able to draw strength to stir.

"You should be more careful with what you say, dear child," the mocking and superior tone of that man only managed to infuriate her and to make her try to free her hands, "you should show more respect to a God," and, in those words, said man came out of the shadows, surrounding the body of his captive until he standing in front of her.

His features were strange, and it was easy to see the visible deformations on his face with the naked eye, caused by some kind of burn or curse. For reasons beyond her knowledge, Tissaia was unable to keep her sight on him for more than a couple of seconds, choosing to close her eyes instead of fixing them on the ground; she could on the edge of her physical strength, but she was still as proud as ever. God or not God present.

In addition to the burns on his face, the supposed god had a coppery mane —which intermingled some braids between its strands — collected in a tail attached to the nape of the neck, a leather chest as the only upper garment, accompanying wide grey trousers and bare feet. _It almost seems that the first thing he did when he woke up was coming to torture me,_ the woman thought.

"Oh, but it has been, little thing. As soon as I noticed that you were relaxing a little," in a casual, careless, precise gesture, the blade of the knife sank to the handle one centimeter above the mage's collarbone, tearing off a new cry, "see? Too relaxed... You wouldn't even let me hear you scream before".

Those humiliating words caused Tissaia to tighten her jaw, her lips sealed in a thin, pale line that reflected nothing of what she felt. The air stopped entering her lungs, while the breath she had taken before slowly abandoned them; she had to control herself in order to have control over anything else. While she felt no chaos around her, due to the dimeritium shackles, she still had her will to surround herself and to make her look stronger. The magic light in front of Tissaia flickered, but soon burned again with the same force as before, casting new shadows at the god's angled factions, which gave him some air of annoyance. Behind the woman's sealed eyelids, the image of a mocking smile, engraved on fire in her brain, was displayed for a few seconds, but disappeared as soon as she opened her eyes.

The redhead moved to turn his back on the female and walked towards the wall of the room, returning to the darkness from which he had emerged.

His disappearance managed to rip a small, relieved sigh at the sorceress. With her eyes again closed and her mind becoming further and further away from that place, Tissaia chose to ignore the constant pain of her wounds and the presence of the sunken dagger in her chest; no man, almighty or not, was going to kill her, not as long as the little hope she still kept beating in her chest was giving her the strength to endure that.

* * *

"Yennefer?!" Tissaia had shouted that name so many times since the fire had been extinguished, that she was barely able to hear her own voice, hoarse and broken.

Sodden Hill stretched under the sorceress's feet, reduced to ashes and debris, as well as burned bodies and empty armors. There were weapons lying on the ground, the chaos of the wizards who had died in that battle still fading. Coral was dead, Vanielle too, she could perceive Vilgefortz, but she could not reach him, the chaos of Sabrina and Triss were very weak, but from Yennefer there was no trace. Tissaia barely found enough strength to walk, the arrow wound she had absorbed from her pupil, still open and dormant in her abdomen, however, she did not stop to rest.

When the chestnut was aware of where she was, her knees gave way, dropping her next to the almost motionless body of a sorceress with blonde hair. Tissaia removed some locks of hair from the woman's face, acting before the mage even had a chance to perceive her presence. One last breath of air was the only thing the rectoress allowed herself to take, before healing the most serious wounds of who was once her pupil; she did not doubt her ability to handle chaos or the knowledge she might have, but, like her former tutor, it was her duty to take care of her, of them.

Tissaia's bones soon made her aware of the pain Sabrina's wounds entailed, almost knocking her out along the way. She might not be able to stand up and continue with her purpose, but not even death was going to stop her right now, not when she had asked them to accompany her to that place, challenging the decision of The Chapter, which was more Stregobor’s. Those were the consequences of _her_ decisions, so no one but her had to assume them, even if that meant carrying so many deaths on her heart.

With difficulty and at Sabrina's astonished gaze, the sorceress stood up and walked again, staggering towards the door, after which she could still perceive Triss’ chaos. She just needed to get close enough for her chaos wouldn't escape his control, even at that distance. With the wounds of Sabrina and Yennefer, as well as their own and the remains of dimeritium, each step was torture; she felt fragmented bones sticking in her muscles, sectioning some nerves and making her lose the sensitivity of different parts of her body, but, a minute later, she had managed to drop next to Triss.

It was fast and somewhat abrupt, but with that spell ran out the last reserve of chaos that Tissaia could access with the dimeritium still in her body. Her mind gave way to unconsciousness, so she was unable to record how a desperate Triss pounced on her, with tears in her eyes and desperate voice, but not daring to reverse the process once carried out. Although her instincts had allowed her to save two of her students, her incompetence had prevented her from doing the same with the rest. She had failed them all and she had not even been able to find Yennefer.

The darkness returned, colder, and the voice of her thoughts went out again.

_'Tissaia, where are you?'_

Although the mage tried to scream in response, only a whining left her lips. She wanted to talk, she needed to, because she knew who that voice belonged to… She just couldn’t.

_'Tissaia, we need you'_

The chestnut had to bite her lower lip to suppress a sob. The helplessness she felt at the moment was beginning to drain all her strength as well as her hope. Why could she hear Yennefer's voice? Why did she have to hear how she called for help again, but wasn’t able to answer? Why was it that every time she closed her eyes, she could only remember the moment she disappeared and how she felt the rest of the mages fade? She didn't even have proof that she was still alive, beyond a hunch. What would she do if she managed to get out of the trouble she was in and _she_ was dead?

With a lump in her throat, a tear, bright and lonely, began to roll down the sorceress' cheek, until it reached her chin and fell to the ground. The knife stuck in her chest seemed to move deeper, causing more blood to spill onto the woman's flushed skin, soaking the cloth —now between brown and reddish, because of dried blood and dust— and leaving behind new scarlet rivers. What had been a white silk nightgown, with a minimally violet hue in the lower part, was now little more than pieces of fabric, glued to her body by blood and sweat, too torn to hide much and only holding on thanks to the dried blood.

_'I need you'_

Tissaia opened her eyes suddenly, the icy-blue orbs sparkling due to the little flame in front ofher. That wasn't a phrase engraved in her memory, it wasn't something Yennefer had told her before, or that she'd even tell her if not in her dreams or hallucinations. She knew it wasn't possible for the dark-haired to be calling her, that it wasn't possible, that she wasn’t hearing her real voice, but... That was a hope to which she did intend to hold on. The flame seemed to burn more vigorously suddenly, as if someone had just emptied an entire bottle of alcohol on it.

_'¿Yennefer?'_

As if the flame were the reflection of the hope that the mage felt.

_''Yen?''_

Tissaia projected her thoughts towards the violet-eyed woman, but she did not expect an answer and only silence answered her call, the damned dimeritium was a huge problem, for sure. It was the first time the woman had used an abbreviated version of her student's name, as she had never considered she had the right to do so. Even now, she did not believe she had it, but the word had come out of her lips so easily.

She moistened her lips, sliding her tongue through them, and she composed a grimace at the prick she felt as she passed through one of the cuts above her lower lip. Part of her felt guilty about calling Yennefer that way; another felt stupid to have called Yennefer at all; the third felt much calmer with the renewed confidence that her student was looking for her, that she needed her the way she did.

Tissaia had, for decades, given up hope that Yennefer would ever see her as more than the cruel rectoress of Aretuza or that she would stop hating her. But she was fine with it, she could live with Yennefer's hatred, as long as she knew she was safe and sound. At that point, denying how much she loved the other sorceress was stupid and the chestnut didn't consider herself as stupid as some mages thought her to be.

After all, it was Yennefer. She didn't go around falling in love with people, how would anyone think she was anything that small or ordinary? If anyone did, they hadn’t the first idea of what they were dealing with. Tissaia had always been content with the idea that Yennefer was traveling from place to place doing whatever she wanted, and not giving a damn about her, because even though the Chapter disagreed with the way she raised her hand with her, she’d always do anything to protect her.

Loving Yennefer was like loving the stars themselves, no one expects the sunset to admire them back... So if Tissaia happened to find herself in danger, she was sure her student wasn't stupid enough or sentimental enough, and she was certainly not in love enough to be looking for her right now. No. Yennefer hated her. She was sure of it. Right? But what if...?

_'Tissaia? Can you hear me? It's you? Gods, tell me it wasn't my mind, please, Tissaia.'_

A new tear fell down the sorceress' face, dragging blood and dust with her.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is not a big deal, but I needed the softness of this pair.

"She's not right, her chaos has never been so scrambled," Sabrina kept her eyes nailed to the ground in front of her, as she accompanied Triss to her room.

For a few days now, that had become the routine of both. Triss was going to pick Sabrina in her room and together they spent the morning in the library, unless there was a chapter meeting, where Sabrina was replacing Tissaia, as neither she nor Margarita could currently fulfill that function; they then gathered in the dining room and shared the food, in a corner away from the rest of the students, whom they had to teach in place of the rectoress. In the evenings they would meet with Yennefer and then, if they did not have classes, go back to the library or open a portal to go and find information on every corner of the Continent; they always came back for dinner and a walk in the school, talking about unimportant things that eased the tension that was piling up every hour Tissaia spent missing. After each meal, they also brought a tray with a plate to Yennefer, although they often had the feeling that she made it disappear so they wouldn't see that she didn't eat.

As they both had told her, they weren't dumb. While both were concerned about the well-being of the rectoress, they still had enough rationality to know that they would be of little use to her without a drop of chaos to use.

Triss nodded to her friend’s words, her face more relaxed than the other woman’s and somehow sadder. She was aware that for both Sabrina and Yennefer, dealing with the loss of Tissaia was more difficult than it might seem to the bare eye. She herself felt indebted to the rectoress for saving her life at Sodden Hill, but the way the blonde admired the woman, the intensity with which Yennefer loved her... Triss sighed at that thought, concerned by her own feelings now. She wasn't really aware of everything the female now with her felt, but she thought her guesses about admiration and debt were pretty accurate.

How would she know that Sabrina's debt to Tissaia was not for her life, but for Triss’s?

"We can't force her to talk to us, you've seen how she was yesterday after you told her about her feelings. And we two know that forcing her to talk won't help, precisely," the chestnut approached her friend and waved her arm with hers, at elbow height, "we have to give her space, we've spent a lot of time apart, it's not like it used to be. And just for the record, I think you are brilliant… I mean, because you discovered the _eadem_ thing".

Due to the blush that covered all Sabrina’s face, the woman decided to just nod at the compliment and pick the previous statement made by her friend, "you mean when you all sneaked into my room after the rectoress's rounds and started getting information out of each other? Sabrina raised an eyebrow, staring at the mage and smiling instantly.

"Exactly," Triss smiled back, "remember when Rita caught us and told us that if we gave her the bottle of Toussaint's Aged Wine, she wouldn't say anything to Tissaia? Fringilla lost the shit out of her and was terrified her uncle would discover anyway". 

"And we finished the reserve bottle that Yenna had hidden," both of them stopped in front of the door of the room that Triss occupied, but they still did not separate, "which reminds me that if Rita hadn't interrupted, you would have confessed to us who you liked back then," Sabrina clicked her tongue, turning just enough to look at the chestnut.

The blush spread immediately, from the neck to Triss's cheeks, showing her opinion regarding the conversation. The sorceress reached out one hand to the door to open it, recoiling a step and letting Sabrina's arm go. She had suddenly become quite nervous, though the blonde could not say well why —it was a teen crush conversation, after all—, which is why she stepped towards Triss and took her hand, slightly worried.

"Have I... Did I say anything to bother you?" Sabrina's voice was little more than a frightened whisper, which led Triss to act instinctively.

The mage took a step forward and bent down to perch her lips, for a fleeting moment, on the sorceress's cheek. Then she leaned back and with a shy smile, murmured, "some things never change, good night, Brina," without giving time for her to react, Triss went back two steps, took the doork notch and slammed it shut, quickly.

The chestnut felt as if her heart had suddenly decided it was a good idea to get out of her chest, beating faster and faster. Even she herself could not explain how she had been able to kiss Sabrina's cheek, let alone close the door to her face. Would have she pissed her off? Would she hate her now? She hadn't given her time to answer her, so surely that would bother the blonde. Sabrina was easily angry, and she had only given her reason to do so.

With a sigh and the lack of knowledge that someone was sat in the window frame, Triss rested her forehead against the wood of the door, her mind going too fast to offer her an objective and clear perspective of the situation. She wasn't thinking, she just let herself be consumed by her emotions and the chaos they caused in her brain... She took air, looking for the little courage she had left and she opened the door again —for she had not let go of the knob in the couple of minutes she had spent circling what had just happened—, so her hand was a little tense and her knuckles had become several shades paler.

When she was able to look up, the air became trapped in the healer's throat, not completely abandoning her lungs. In front of her was Sabrina —or a completely identical statue that seemed to breathe each few seconds— with one hand on her cheek, just where Triss had perched her lips, her face as red as the chestnut dress and ajar lips, in a failed attempt to articulate a word.

Triss panicked when she saw such a scene, completely oblivious to what might have led her to suffer such shock. Had it not been for the babbling, surely Triss would have run out to find a potion to cure petrification. However, Triss merely placed both hands on Sabrina’s forearms and gave a gentle squeeze, hoping to attract her friend's gaze.

"Are you all right? What happened? Have you looked at the reflection of a basilisk?" The voice of the chestnut reflected much more panic than would have been usual, but wasn't it an exceptional situation? Faced with Sabrina's next unintelligible babbling, Triss's concern only increased, so she moved her hands to the blonde's cheeks, without even turning away the one she already had there, "Sabrina? Sabrina, can you hear me? "

"You've... You’ve kissed me," it wasn't _exactly_ a kiss, but it was a kiss.

The statement made Triss blush before slowly nodding. Her heart struck her chest again menacingly, but she did not withdraw her hands, as had been her first thought. She knew she wouldn’t find the courage a second time, so she held Sabrina's gaze, moistening her lips nervously, which attracted the blonde's gaze for several seconds, before returning it to the brown orbs.

Sabrina stepped forward and bent over, enough for her forehead to be supported against Triss's. Indecision was reflected in her eyes so clearly that Triss began to doubt whether she herself was beginning to hallucinate, as an allergic reaction to her own stupidity. However, feeling Sabrina's breathing so close and the prolonged contact between the skin of both make her feel a faint dizziness, which she began to feel, more precisely, as a result of her quick heartbeat. So, it was it, her heart, who made the decision for her. For both women it would be impossible to say which of the two was the first to close the short distance that separated them to join their lips in a soft and shy kiss.

What had begun as careful contact soon became much more energetic and desperate, as soon as they both began to process what was happening and that they were really doing it. Sabrina surrounded the chestnut waist and took several steps forward, pushing her until they were both inside the room. The door closed behind her back, probably because one of them used her magic to do it. It was then that Triss took the same steps forward, until the blonde found herself trapped between her friend and the door, while a soft moan escaped her lips. It wasn't like she had any complaints about it, but it wasn't what she would have expected from a person like Triss either.

"As entertaining as the show may be, I think you'll kill me if I don't interrupt you before you make things escalate in front of me," a female voice sounded behind Triss, causing her to jump and step away from Sabrina.

Light eyes, freckles and black hair collected in two braids resting on each of the shoulders of the woman sitting on Triss's bed in a certainly provocative position. The woman wore a red dress with a V-neck that left little to the imagination —it was daring even compared to Sabrina's own dress—, a gold ribbon filled with glyphs and runes adorned various parts of the dress, as well as a raised white collar, which only surrounded the back of the brunette's head.

"Philippa! By the gods, you scared me!" Triss's voice sounded much sharper than normal, but it was the only thing besides the brunette's laughter, that sounded in that room.

"Don't be exaggerated, honey," with brazenly, she winked at the chestnut, earning Sabrina a fulminant look. "As much as it hurts, I'm not here for pleasure… Unless you want to come back with me, then I think I can make it a pleasure trip".

Since the blonde had not moved a single inch and seemed to deeply feel the need to kill the dark-haired, Triss approached her again and took her hand. _'We'll talk about this later... If you want,’_ Sabrina nodded and relaxed a little, but not too much.

"And why are you in my room, then, if not pleasure?"

"What? Haven't you heard?" Philippa got serious all of a sudden, "The Chapter has put a price on Yennefer's head... Dead or alive".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I oooop--


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was initially +9k, so I thought it was better to split it on two of them and to delete some details. But don't worry if some things sound out of context or strange, they should be resolved within the next chapters. 
> 
> Oh, and thank you so much everybody for all your comments, you really encourage me to write, specially airotsa (I have to say I love your reactions and probably you'll be mad at me for what comes next). I hope you like the story anyway, and apologies for the next chapters, because it is always darkest before the dawn.

"What do you mean?" Triss had been petrified at the site, pale and unable to say more than that. Her instincts, however, acted immediately, trying to reach Yennefer, transferring her thoughts to warn her, but she got no results. Only silence received her message.

"How the fuck did they put a price on her head?" Sabrina did her best to stay whole and deliver a stable, firm tone of voice.

"The news have begun to spread this morning, after The Chapter meeting," scuttling the faces of the two women in front of her, Philippa changed her position on the, suddenly awkward, chestnut’s bed; she had not planned to give that kind of news to the two best friends of the Brotherhood's new target.

"But this morning there has been no reunion... " This time, the blonde's voice sounded anguished and strangled, "although we haven't seen Yenna since yesterday".

"I suppose your absence is why the decision was unanimous," Philippa added, offering her best deduction and an expression of apology. "I came as soon as Margarita told me, but you are almost impossible to find..." By twisting her lips in a half smile and raising an eyebrow, she looked at them with a rogue glow reflected on her face, "but I can understand why".

"What?! No!" Again, Triss's voice sounded much sharper than usual, "I mean... I don't know, but I don't... I know... We were looking for Tissaia!"

"So it's true... The almighty rectoress of Aretuza has abandoned us to our fate," the affirmation contained some disappointment, but it sounded almost like an absolute truth.

"Tissaia would never do anything like that! She's not gone, she's been kidnapped!" Sabrina took two steps forward, with Triss' hand being the only thing that prevented her from pouncing on the brunette, prey of anger and indignation. Chaos oscillated around her with fury, contented faintly by the blonde's last barriers. The chestnut, who had tightened her grip on the other's limb, gently pulled it, so that Sabrina would recede a little, then surrounded her waist with her free arm.

For an instant, as her chaos interacted with Sabrina's, she could see her slowly calming down and let the hug heal the little wound Philippa had just opened. Some of the tension disappeared from the sorceress' shoulders, followed by minimal movement that allowed Triss to accommodate her two arms around the blonde's waist and rest her head on her shoulder shyly. It was something as new and strange as it was comforting, so neither of them made a move to back down or change the new position they had found.

The silence lasted about a minute, in which Philippa avoided looking at what she named in her mind as the new couple to add to her list of sorceresses she could no longer seduce without risking another of them cursing her or trying to kill for the next century. Of course, it wasn't like she was involved in situations like that either, as if she needed a list, no, definitely not. In the end, it was the brunette who cleared her throat, joining in her head as many dots as she could in the time that the embrace of the two women offered her.

Sabrina seemed so confident that Tissaia had not abandoned them that all the rumors and stories Philippa had heard over the past month began to seem less believable. In fact, if the mage kept analyzing the information that had come to her ears —and surely those of the whole Brotherhood, except for the two women in front of her— there were too many gaps and conflicting versions. Shit, she had to warn the others.

"If the rectoress has not left of her own free will, whoever made her disappear must have much dimeritium to prevent us from perceiving her magic footprint, so..." The rest of the sentence was relegated to her own thoughts when Sabrina raised a hand and used her chaos to mute her.

_'Not here, follow us,'_ was the whole reason the blonde offered, before a portal opened up behind her back. Triss was the first to enter the room across the space hole, followed by her friend and finally Philippa.

* * *

Strangely, the months that had followed the Battle of Sodden Hill had been quiet for Geralt, who, after a few fruitful contracts, had chosen to take Ciri to safety. The Witcher had opted for a cabin in one of the mountains of the Hertch region, needing nothing more than a bag of gold to buy it through an intermediary. Both he and the two people who accompanied him had decided that this would be the best place to take temporary refuge, while the situation stabilized itself on the Continent.

Only a handful of people, who could be counted with one hand’s fingers, knew where he and his protégée were, so there was no more discomfort than the occasional monsters who decided to attack them as they strolled the mountain, trained or simply had a quiet dinner.

The cabin was quite cozy and had enough space to guarantee the intimacy of Geralt and his partner, while Ciri had her own space. It was nothing like a palace, but it served the white-haired girl as much or more than one; after all, her training with the Witcher left her so exhausted that she didn't have much time to question the comforts of the place beyond how pleasant it was to lie in bed or sink into a bathtub with hot water at the end of the day. The construction consisted of a fairly spacious living room, which served as a dining room and had a round table with six chairs—"in case we ever have a visit," had been the argument Geralt had to accept—a considerably big sofa, two armchairs and a small tea table located between those three furnitures, in front of the fireplace; a kitchen that had what was necessary to cook and a pantry full of all kinds of ingredients, edible or not; a bathroom with a bathtub large enough for four people, choice of the teen; and three rooms, one double for the Witcher, a little smaller for the princess and a medium-sized one, also with a double bed, in case they ever really received a visit. Next to the door that gave access to the living room was a small piece of furniture dedicated solely to holding Geralt and Ciri's weapons, as they had agreed not to carry them while inside the house, especially when they were covered with various remnants of monsters.

When the second of the portals that day opened in the middle of the hall, about midnight, Geralt and Ciri were already wielding their swords, standing in front of the magical door. Behind the portal was Jaskier, with his lute raised above his head, ready to make use of it as if it was a weapon, in order to avoid the intruders running away. However, seeing that the first person to emerge from the portal was Triss, Geralt lowered the sword and holstered it again, instructing his companions to do the same with their _weapons._ The woman, on the other hand, had already raised both hands in appeasing gesture, as she set aside to let the rest of the women pass by.

"I'm sorry we surprised you at this hour..." She murmured, as her eyes finished adjusting to the light radiated by the candles in that room. All she got was a growl of the sorcerer, as he walked to the entrance to lay the swords.

"Triss?" A female voice was heard from behind Jaskier, who eventually left the lute on the sofa, without taking his gaze off the three women who had just invaded his home. From behind the man came a female figure, dark hair and violet eyes, who soon smiled when she saw the other mages, "Sabrina! Philippa!" The relief was reflected in her expression as she finished closing the distance that separated her from the group, trying to hug the first sorcerer.

"When I couldn't reach you before, I started to worry," to everyone's surprise, Triss crossed her arms, rejecting the sorceress's embrace, " you can't just disappear! Not in a situation like this!"

"I'm really sorry, but the whole fucking Chapter went after me in the early afternoon," Yennefer embraced her friend anyway, before doing the same with Sabrina and looking at the third sorceress from top to bottom, with some suspicion, "can you believe they blew the office door in the air? When Tissaia comes back, she's going to be furious".

"Yen..." Sabrina placed a hand on her arm. She didn't want to eradicate her friend's hopes, but she didn't think it was healthy for her to start acting as if the fact that they were going to find her mentor was something that would happen soon. Of course, the dark-haired woman seemed in better shape than the previous day, but still the consequences of failure when harbored so much hope... Sabrina shuddered just to think about how Yennefer could cope with a situation like that. Would anything have happened since they had spoken the day before?

"So, it is true that all this is the doing of The Chapter..." Philippa muttered, with a glow that was difficult to identify in her eyes, "I should leave and warn everybody".

"Wait, we still have to tell you everything we know," Triss turned to look at the mage with braided hair, with some concern.

"I think you'd better tell her," she said before opening a portal that lasted long enough to cross it.

Yennefer merely looked at the two remaining mages with both eyebrows raised and some curiosity, while Jaskier decided that the best place to enjoy that show was sitting at the lounge table, next to Geralt, now standing next to him. Ciri, stunned, alternated her gaze between the three sorceresses, curious to see any display of magic that the women were willing to give.

Finally, it was the bard who broke the silence, resigned to the unexpected pause in that show. Hoping, he came down from the table and up to the teenager to take her by the hand and pull her into the kitchen.

"We'll get tea and biscuits, it looks like this is going to be a long night..." The man only stopped once, already standing under the frame of the door connecting the living room to the kitchen and turning his head to the females, "I won’t allow that you leave without singing a couple of songs! You have no choice!" With that last cry, he disappeared from the sight of the rest, closely followed by a disappointed Ciri.

The silence returned to the room for a moment, before Geralt broke it by dragging a chair and taking a seat on it, in front of the table. The three women took the gesture as an invitation and came to it to do the same; Triss and Sabrina staying together all the time, Yennefer leaving as much distance between the Witcher and her as possible.

"If Philippa is going to bring someone, I think it's best to wait until they’re all here to start," Sabrina changed her gaze between the white-haired man and the brunette, getting a nod from both, "which leads me to ask you, Yen, how much are we going to tell them? "

The sorceress, after a quick look at Geralt, fixed her violet orbs on the blonde's eyes. Something had changed in it, though none of those present were able to point out exactly what; she seemed much more resolute and determined than the day before, in the eyes of her friends, much more "herself", according to the Witcher's personal judgment.

"I think the fairest thing, if we want them to trust us, is to tell them everything, I do appreciate the place where my head stands," Yennefer leaned back in the chair, leaning slightly into it. She was not amused by the idea of sharing something as personal as what Sabrina had revealed to her the day before, about the _eadem,_ but with The Chapter behind her head, it was best to have as many allies as possible and, both Geralt de Rivia, and Margarita Laux-Antille were two of the most valuable troops the mages could imagine at the time. That, hopping she was the woman Philippa was talking about.

"Well, in that case, it's best if you do the talking," Triss leaned toward the blonde, until she rested her chin on her shoulder, "we just found out they were coming after you, so we have little information," while that was true, no one there dared to talk about it, fearing to make a comment that could infuriate the sorceress.

Jaskier and Ciri soon returned to the room, one carrying a tray full of cups and a steaming teapot, the other with a plate full of biscuits. They left both at the table and approached the free chairs, but a growl of the Witcher prevented them from taking a seat; both had gotten to know Geralt well enough to be able to interpret that sound within the current context. However, neither of them simply gave in, Ciri pouting and Jaskier taking a hand to his chest with indignation.

"I can't believe you don't trust me... After all these years and so many orgasms you trade me for the crazy sorceress!" Jaskier's eyes shone in the candlelight, while his voice was completely focused on as dramatic a performance as possible.

"Did you just call me crazy, you devilish bard?" Enraged and raising her voice, Yennefer stood up, slamming the table with the palms of both hands, as she looked at the man, "because your husband is here to protect you, but when he's not, I'm going to rip your guts out and hang you with them!"

"See?! Crazy, Geralt, crazy!"

The Witcher growled and took his hand over his face, certainly embarrassed at the two guests for that show. While he and the sorceress had been apart for a very long time —discounting a brief interaction weeks ago, when Geralt found the wandering mage lost in a forest, while returning from completing an inevitable contract—, but the relationship the woman and the bard maintained had not changed from the moment they met, much to weigh on their heads. Finally, with a second growl, the white-headed man picked up a cookie and took it to his mouth, making his position quite clear about the possible fight that was about to arise in the living room of his cabin. Who was he to keep _Fate_ from acting, anyways? Wasn’t that what everybody kept saying?

To everyone's sake, Triss Merigold was not a person capable of watching a looming fight and not doing the impossible to prevent it from taking place. Thus, the woman stood up and move to stand between Yennefer and Jaskier, raising both hands in a peacemaking gesture. Confident that the bard's attacking power would be lower, she turned her back on the man and looked her friend right in the eyes.

"Come on, Yenna, let it be, it's not worth it and it's just a stupid comment," her conciliatory voice attracted the attention of the sorceress, who very much to her regret ended up nodding and relaxing her posture, earning a smile from the healer. Triss turned to Jaskier and crossed her arms, "and you should be smarter and not provoke one of the two women present who could kill you without blinking nor remorse, if you provoke her".

"Hey!" Sabrina complained behind her back and composed a pout, though she only earned a laugh from Yennefer, who regained her position sitting next to the blonde.

"But it's not fair!"

"Julian, go for a walk with Ciri," with a much more stern tone of voice and a finger pointing to the door, as if it were an annoyed mother, Triss managed to get the bard to obey and head out, dragging his feet.

"It's not fair..." He turned one last glance at the whitehead, warning him that _he was better off telling him everything afterwards._

Once the door closed behind the younger ones, Triss dropped into the chair she previously occupied, ripping a crackle at the wood. A deep and dramatic sigh was all she could manage before a new portal opened in the living room. The three mages stood up, throwing back their chairs through the abruptness of the movement, Geralt did not hesitate for a second to do the same and run for his own sword, drawing it and brandishing it in the direction of the space gap. What was wrong with everyone showing up at home unannounced that day? Was he wearing an inn sign? Was there a map where next to the location of the cabin was said "White Wolf’s House, please come visit him today?" He didn't think so, so he wasn't able to understand why the hell anyone with powers had decided to magically show up there.

The three sorceresses had their hands raised at chest height, ready to conjure up any kind of spell that might be needed to defend or attack. They trusted each other enough to put their lives in the hands of others and had gone through enough delicate situations to know what would do each one of them: Triss the surprise attack, Sabrina the front one, Yennefer the defense and any necessary strategy. They had always acted that way and nothing had gone wrong for them, unless a thousand-to-one ratio was available.

Time passed slower than usual, until a figure emerged from the portal. Black braids, red dress, obscene neckline...

"Oh, Philippa," Triss sighed in relief and lowered her hands, soon the rest left their defensive position.

"I left some minutes ago, you were supposed to be expecting me, not threatening my very beautiful face," muttered the woman, while rolling her eyes.

After the mage, another person crossed the portal before it closed, letting them trapped in a living room on a cottage in the middle of nowhere. The second intruder was a woman with golden, curly hair, blue eyes and an absurdly perfect body; not even the marble likenesses of goddesses and nymphs chiseled out by the greatest sculptors could rival the sorceress's figure, just as not even the beauty of Yennefer was comparable to the one that woman who had just performed at the site had. All eyes, except Philippa's, were directed at her for different reasons and an uncomfortable silence was established in the room for at least a minute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably it's an useless data, but my tumblr is witchesshadow, just in case you want to drop any idea for one-shots or anything at all (I am planning another fic with a modern AU).


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here you have the second part of chapter 6 because I had to split them. I have already written the next two chapters, which are... Not this bright? I'll post them when as soon as I translate them, but I hope you enjoy this one, even if I used it only to introduce Rita.

With a growl, Geralt decided to move his gaze first and go and leave his sword by the door, again. Yennefer smiled and gestured to the two new mages to sit down, while Triss and Sabrina imitated their friend's smiling expression and got back to their seats. It was only a matter of seconds before everyone re-occupied their seats and the tension softened a little.

Philippa sat next to Yennefer and the blonde by her side, settling a lock of hair behind her ear. Like the dark-haired, that second sorceress wore a rather pronounced neckline, although the color of the velvet was green instead of red. The fabric was fitted to her waist by a gold belt and from her neck hung a necklace of the same color, with several circular pendants.

"I can't believe you're quieter right now than in any of my classes, when I've been asking you to keep quiet for years," the blonde crossed her arms, leaning back in the chair and watching everyone here, "and close your mouth, girls, we're not codfish and my eyes are up here". 

Five seconds of silence and then, "it's just that when you were teaching, you didn't wear those necklines, Rita," Sabrina was the only one capable of transforming the thought of the whole room into words and thus ripping off a laugh from the woman.

"Would you have paid attention to the class if I had?"

"No," Triss acknowledged, with a thread of voice and cheeks burning, so Rita laughed again.

"There you have the reason, then," the woman uncrossed her arms to rest them on the table, dedicating a side look to the Witcher before returning to her former pupils, "well, now let's talk about more serious bussiness. Philippa has told me that, according to you, Tissaia has not gone anywhere of her own free will. Something I told her at first, too, until there were too many rumors to just ignore them," Rita's gaze ended up looking at Yennefer, who had been looking at the table more intensely since her arrival than it had to be healthy. However, before she continued, Triss raised his left hand slightly, " we're not in class, Merigold," it was the only thing the older woman said, before the mage blushed and lowered it quickly.

"I-I'm sorry... But what rumors are you talking about?"

Margarita raised both her eyebrows and looked at Philippa, who shrugged her shoulders, not knowing what to say.

"The other day, as I approached the village, I heard that The Chapter had dismissed the rectoress of Aretuza after she left, "to everyone's surprise, it was Geralt who joined the conversation.

"That's an example, the official version that came to us this morning through a boy from Ban Ard says that Yennefer has killed her to take her seat and the school," Rita again fixed her blue eyes on the other sorceress, "and even if I am upset with Tiss for our past, if that is true..."

Yennefer looked up then and directed her eyes into Rita's. The mage was not able to find the right words to continue with what she was saying; she could almost tell how life was beginning to escape from between her fingers only with the intense fury that the child was transmitting to her. Rita swallowed when she realized it wasn't just Yennefer's look, but the fact that her chaos was condensed around her, pointing it directly at her, waiting for the best time to get through her like hundreds of magical daggers. So that's what Tissaia meant every time she recommended her to make Yennefer ascend; she was really special and a diamond that just needed to be polished.

Aware of the growing tension that began to form in the room during the duel of glances, the rest of those present moved in their chairs. Geralt let out a growl, Philippa began to look at her nails distractedly, Triss looked at Sabrina, pleading, and the last one, after rolling her eyes, cleared her throat.

"I'm the first one who loves to see two people beat themselves up, but I don't think we have time to lose it in these things..." Due to the chestnut squeezing her hand to encourage her to follow, she changed her gaze between Yennefer and Margarita, "we all know that Yenna would never hurt Tissaia, so it's stupid to stop on these things."

"Is it? Because I don't see why The Chapter would openly go against her".

"Because Streghost has been obsessed with her for decades, especially since we disobeyed the decision to remain neutral in Sodden Hill," no one corrected Sabrina when he referred to one of the greatest sources of conflict in the magical world.

"I will set aside that all I have is your word, Sabrina," Margarita looked back at the dark-haired, who had raised a hand to hold Tissaia's pendant with all her strength. The blonde frowned, identifying the origin of the object with just a quick check, "you shouldn't have that, only the rector can wear the school’s crest".

It was at that moment that everyone realized that the situation was fucked up.

However, Yennefer took a slow breath of air —right now, she needed the bottle to help Tissaia—, and kept her voice steady and confident while speaking for the first time since the two mages had appeared in the Witcher’s house.

"Tissaia left it behind for some reason and I'm not going to take it off or lose sight of it until I found her so I can give it back," maybe it was the way those words were said, perhaps the emotion they conveyed, but Rita wasn't able to keep an eye on Yennefer for another second. The dark-haired stood up, still clinging to the pendant and looked at everyone present, "the only ones who have enough dimeritium to completely nullify Tissaia's magic footprint are Fringilla and Nilfgaard. They probably have been able to use it to build some mage-proof place, I don't think with the chains it's enough for we not being able to locate her..."

"What chains?" Philippa had leaned forward at the table and was looking at Yennefer with renewed curiosity. She would have taken a cookie from the plate if the whitehead had left more than the crumbs.

As everyone looked at Yennefer now, the sorceress sighed and began to walk back and forth in the room, not knowing exactly how to explain he herself.

"Tissaia is chained with dimeritium," she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, then frowned, just as she used to do when she was scolded, "okay... Let's see, yesterday Sabrina said Tissaia and I were a weird thing, so I spent the whole afternoon and until this morning when Stregidiot tried to kill me," Yennefer ignored Sabrina when she said she was keeping that one and went on, "trying to transfer my thoughts to her and locate her. All I could hear was a few words, it wasn’t like a normal transference, but I know she's alive".

"Yennefer, you're going to have to be more detailed," Margarita rolled her eyes, dramatically.

_"Eadem,_ Rita, they are _eadem_ ," Triss sketched a broad smile, as if it was the most beautiful news in the world.

"The _eadem_ are a myth, girls, I thought you were smarter than that," she moved her head and sighed, though certainly, if that were the case, that might explain a few things, "what are you based on to believe that old fairytale? "

"You told us about it in class, Rita," Triss protested, upset.

"I also told you about dragons, if I remember correctly".

"Well, then it's proven that the weir word things do exist," Geralt conceded, eating the cookie crumbs now, and then mumbling, "there are also few things more powerful than a djinn…"

"Ask her anything!" Sabrina looked at her old teacher, still sure of her verdict.

Margarita snorted.

"If you will sleep better that way..." The woman thought about it for a few seconds, before asking the first thing she came up with, "what's her favorite color?"

"Violet, but that one was already asked by these two... You were her friend, you're supposed to know more personal things, right?"

"Friend? Is that what she said we were?" She sounded so outraged that even Geralt was moving on his seat, with nothing else to be distracted by. After a deep sigh, the female moved on to the next question she came up with, "which book is the only one Tissaia has been unable to finish to date?"

"Rhetoric and Logic, tenth volume, the one Stregoboring wrote… Why does he even write things? Nobody wants to know anything about him".

"Too easy, let's see... What's her favorite smell?"

"Gooseberries and lilacs," for some reason, that combination was quite familiar to the mage, although she was unable to find out why right at the time.

"No, it's not, her favorite smell was wet earth after a storm," Margarita twisted the gesture, "as I said, a fraud, the _eadem_ don't exist".

"Of course it is, I'm absolutely sure," Yennefer frowned, for he was being completely sure, "and don’t you dare to talk about her in past tense".

"But… Rita, you haven't spoken to the rector for half a century, some things may have changed," Philippa looked at both women, doubtful. If there was even a chance...

"Tissaia is not a woman who changes tastes in half a century, Philippa... But all right, let's leave that one aside," there were only two questions that danced on the woman's head, but they were too personal and too dangerous to just let them get away; the problem was that, if she wanted to be sure, she was going to need them, "given that there's no choice but to get the heavy artillery out... What's Tissaia's biggest fear?"

At the moment that question was asked, even the chimney fire seemed to stop crackling to remain silent and accentuate the tension that had been growing again. Yennefer stopped his erratic steps around the room and stared at Margarita with a serious expression and then, sad eyes, until she finally shook her head several times; no, it wouldn't be she who revealed a secret like that... Although the answer was not what Yennefer expected.

Her features softened, as the response danced between her heart and her mind, silent and far from ears that should not know such information, which would remain well protected by her mental barriers. While the mage was aware that her own honesty and reputation were in question, she didn’t car. For once her pride was what mattered least to her. If Tissaia's secrets were at stake, her pride could go to hell.

"I don't think that's something anyone here needs to know," to the surprise of those present, Rita seemed happy with that answer.

"In that case, I have only one question left, why did I argue with Tissaia sixty years ago?"

Triss stopped looking at her friend to lay her eyes on her teacher, surprised by that new information. Of course, Yennefer's ironic laughter attracted everyone's attention back.

"Because you're a fucking bitch, how could you do something like that to her?" If that was the answer Rita hoped she wouldn't hear, it wasn't noticeed. Except for a new shadow on her face, the sorceress remained neutral, even when the brunette approached her dangerously and yelled at her, "how could you fucking break her heart the way you did?!"

Yennefer was having serious trouble controlling her chaos at the time, just as it was difficult for her not to do anything excessively violent, like pushing her. Actually, pushing Margarita seemed like the best decision anyone could make at the time and it was exactly what the sorceress planned to do, if not because strong hands grabbed her arms from behind. Geralt withheld the brunette in time to prevent her from pouncing on the mage, while Philippa made a move to try and rise up, stopping only at the blonde's gesture.

Margarita raised her right hand and took the sorceress's chin, forcing her to look her in the eye for a couple of seconds. She couldn't help but feel a mixture of jealousy and guilt, but given her story with Tissaia, that was the logical thing to feel, wasn't it? Yennefer's reaction had been enough to show two things: the first, she knew what Margarita had done, the second, which—beyond telling the truth— it was obvious what Yennefer felt for the rectoress. The child's violet eyes had a special and very concrete glow, now that she was stopping to analyze them; it was nothing that could be appreciated with the naked eye or that could be related to a particular fact, but when you had all the clues... That woman couldn’t harm Tissaia, not willingly, not ever. Margarita took a breath of air and curved her lips in a smile, refusing to let any unwanted emotion be reflected in her expression; then she gestured to the Witcher to let go of the brunette, who to her surprise did not get to beat her or step aside. Yennefer merely looked at her, defiantly, and contained her anger and chaos.

"So violet, gooseberries and lilacs... It makes sense," she murmured, connecting another detail, "I suppose it's a shame that she no longer prefers storms, but what are we going to do with her, she’s a full grown up," still with one hand on the young woman's chin, she made her move her head back and forth while watching her, as if she were an unusual experiment. "The bond is imperfect, that is quite obvious because you don't have the full answer to my question, but it's enough to make it clear that you know more than you should... I mean, it's not like Tiss even mentioned to you that we had a story, let alone what happened," the blonde muttered between her teeth, earning an annoyed growl from the female.

Geralt chose to sit down again and leaned towards Triss, to whisper to him.

"Is Yennefer a unicorn now?"

That ripped a cackle off from Sabrina, who had ended up surrounding Triss's waist with one arm, in an attempt to keep her as close to herself as possible; they still had to talk about many things, but at the moment, any kind of contact with her seemed wonderful to her.

"What I don't understand is how you've been able to confirm anything if she hasn't answered half the questions," Sabrina changed her gaze between the two women standing, earning an elbow from Triss, that was quickly compensated with a repentant kiss.

"Because I know Tissaia and I know there are things she would never tell anyone if she didn't have enough confidence with the person. If my sources aren’t wrong, leaving the Battle of Sodden Hill aside, she and Yennefer will have spoken three or four times since she graduated... Secondly, if for some reason Tissaia had told your friend some of those things, why would she hide it now, when her reputation is at stake? There should be a reason for weight, if she had the information. And dear ones," Margaret let Yennefer go to sit down again, dedicating a circular look to those present, "it is clear that Yennefer's reason is exactly the same that would have made it impossible for her to have hurt Tissaia" the woman gave some time to the rest to assimilate those words, before continuing. By the time she did, the brunette had also re-occupied her seat, only now her face reflected a much less friendly expression. "It's been over two centuries since there's been a case of _eadem_ , that because the law of surprise is excluded from this category, just as forced magic ties," a growl from Geralt and an uncomfortable Yennefer movement showed much more than anyone would have expected, "and distance and lack of contact have made that your bond hasn’t finished narrowing, although it's as natural as breathing. Does any of you remind the class I spent talking about it?"

"No," Triss smiled disappointed, as she had been several months after that hoping to find her soulmate, wanting to be special, but over time she had ended up leaving aside any related memories.

"I do, but you didn't say much more than the obvious," Sabrina looked at her mentor, curious, "did you hide information from us?"

"Hide is a very strong word... I just gave you the basics so you could have some general notions, I didn't think you'd need any more, they were fairytales back then".

"Oh, come on, stop wasting our time," Philippa rested her elbows on the table and her head on her hands, then smile at the blonde, "I know you're dying to wander over any myth, so enlighten us with your knowledge," one more wink was all Margarita needed to continue.

"All right, all right... Let's see, when an _eadem_ couple is marked by fate, the bond between these two people is a type of channel that connects their two souls, so, with enough time and practice, perfect communication and sync would be achieved. In the case of Yennefer and Tissaia, for example, it is what is causing Yen to know things about her current state or mind instinctively, even if they do not know how to explain them or do not have details."

"So whatever I feel is the fault of fucking Destiny?" The brunette had nailed her eyes back to the wooden table. She had not been able to prevent an invasive thought from assaulting her mind again, for it seemed that everyone, Destiny, or whoever had a djinn was bent on forcing her to love or be attracted to people without her having anything to say about it; and there was nothing she hated more but not to be able to choose or to be conditioned by third parties.

"No, no, not at all," Margarita gave her a warmer smile than she had hoped for, after all, she too had been her teacher in the past, "it just means that anything you can feel for her will be considerably amplified. For example, in a another case you could just be friends, so she would be the person you would listen to if she told you to jump over a bridge, because you’d trust her enough to know she would do nothing to harm you; or if you hated her, your desire to kill her would be... Scarily huge. But bonding doesn't force feelings, it just empowers the ones the _eadem_ create between them, to make sure your destinies stay together".

"Oh," was all she could say, while her cheeks acquired a certain pink hue.

"What I want to reach is that, for any of us, projecting thoughts and reading someone else's mind under normal conditions would be easy and consume a little of our chaos, with a non-magical person, it would be more complicated and would expend more chaos, but with dimeritium in between, it would be impossible because any transference of energy is impossible," they all nodded, even Geralt, aware of how dangerous that material was. "The difference, in the case of an _eadem_ is that the link allows you to communicate without using chaos, because it goes beyond ordering it or transferring energy... It's a natural, unconscious thing, just like breathing is. It is in sight that we do not have time to lose it by practicing, if it is true that she is chained with dimeritium, but perhaps in more favorable conditions, you could even feel where she is, because you are destined to always find each other".

And as Rita spoke, Yennefer was immersed in an inner struggle, her own mind and heart battling. While she had gone looking for Tissaia to Aretuza, wanting to speak to her at once and clarify everything they left unsaid at Sodden Hill, much of herself continued to deny that there was any kind of intense feeling directed towards the rector; she had suffered too much in her past years not to fear the consequences that unrequited feelings might have. Of course, much of that suffering had been caused by her own cowardice, for it was she who fled the academy hanging by the wrong arm, rather than the one she had longed for for decades. The past ached, but as she saw it, she could only run away or learn from it.

And Yennefer was too tired to run away.

Thus, by taking a hand to her chest to carefully hold Tissaia's pendant, the mage allowed her heart to win that battle. She would cross oceans of time to find Tissaia, to look her in the eye just once more, to have theopportunity to walk with her arms intertwined, or to be able to tell her all that out loud. She was everything Yennefer didn't know she wanted, until now, until she was able to recognize to herself that she did want her. That she loved her. A small smile had begun to draw on her lips when a hand appeared in front of her field of view, moving back and forth and stealing all the sorceress's attention. That hand was familiar to her, which she confirmed by seeing that it was attached to the arm of one of her friends.

"Yen? Are you ok?" Triss looked at her, worried, with one hand on her shoulder and her body slightly tilted forward, away from Sabrina, "Yenna? Are you there?"

"Uhm... Yes, yes, I was just distracted," trusting that no one could perceive the blush that, contrary to her desires, had begun to spread down her cheeks, Yennefer avoided looking at any of those present and merely caressed the pendant fondly. She knew That Rita would look at her badly for not paying attention to another of her _classes_ , but, after all, when was the brunette good at paying attention to what she was told?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will try and answer your comments, despite being so shy, because you guys really deserve it.
> 
> Also, from now on, the next 5 or 6, chapters (maybe just 1 or 2, depends on how things develope) will contain the following TW, but I am not saying what happens in which one, because that would be spoiling and also de TW are on the tags. I am not putting the TW on the chapters in question to avoid spoilers, but it will go a little rough on here.
> 
> So the TW are "torture", "brief description of violence", "suicide" is adressed, "amnesia". And also I am sorry for your feels.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be a little late to translate the last chapter I uploaded to the original version, but I hope you don't mind (university is killing me *dramatic passing out*).
> 
> Anyway, I hope you keep enjoying the story. First italics are for a flashback, the others are for thoughts. If you want to know the TW for this and the next chapters, check end notes on chapter 7 (aka last chapter).

_'Gods, tell me it wasn't my mind, please, Tissaia'._

_'I can't imagine why your mind would want to create a version of me, so I guess that's not the case... Unless it's you who's being created by my mind and not the other way around.'_

_'Don't talk nonsense, this would clearly be my hallucination.'_

_'Really? And how is that?'_

_'Because even without being present you're scolding me,' that made Tissaia smile._

_'Well, it could be mine too, because even without seeing you, I know you're in trouble,' despite not being seen, the rectoress raised an eyebrow and, no matter how far away the brunette was, it was something she could imagine easily._

_'You're the one in trouble this time, so tell me how I help you.'_

_'I don't know where I am, I'm hanging from some black chains, they're dimeritium, I can feel it... Gods, it's horrible and it hurts, I don't know how much longer I can take it. There's a man calling himself a god, he's torturing me to get something, but I don't know what it is.'_

_'... I understand... Not bad... Find... Pass... Soon... Fuck... -bor...' That, interrupted by strange and irregular silences, was all Tissaia could hear from her pupil before deducing that she was no longer with her —or wherever they were to speak mentally, because clearly that was not a thought transference— so the sorcerer dropped her head forward and closed her eyes._

* * *

Since her brief conversation with Yennefer, Tissaia had regained much of her willpower.

Surely, for anyone a talk like the one they both had held was just a way of wasting time and energy, as it would serve absolutely nothing. However, for the rector, those seconds had been much better than a healing spell on any of her wounds. She may have her back completely torn by the clutches of a wolf —who was still stalking her from one of the corners that the light could not reach in the room—, she may have a dagger sank to the handle on her chest, and maybe blood loss, dimeritium and lack of water and food were the cause of her dizziness and physical weakness at the time, yes. But Tissaia didn't consider herself an easy woman to kill and she knew those stupid wounds weren't going to kill her, just as she was sure that sooner or later Yennefer would come looking for her.

The arch-mistress didn't even open her eyes when she felt the wolf's jaw clinging tightly to her leg, sinking all his fangs into the woman's right thigh. She refused to shout or let slip any sound that showed her pain, for she knew that the creature would enjoy it almost as much as not letting her sleep. The shadows under Tissaia's eyes darkened more every day, as her sleep used to last little longer than a few minutes every few hours. Possibly, that was another reason he was so weak, but did that really matter? With a trembling sigh and beginning to get used to the lacerating prick that the new —and old— wounds caused in her body, the woman could do nothing not to let herself go in Morpheus's arms for as long as she could stay in them.

* * *

The rectoress's room connected through a door directly to her office and it was through it the only way anyone could access it, or by climbing to her window or portals. That day there were no classes, being the first of the two weekly breaks that she would give her students to relax and rest, so it was too early for anyone to be awake yet. In addition, there was also no meeting with the rest of the Chapter that day, so the rectoress could afford herself a few minutes of extra sleep, while the soft light of dawn bathed her body, through the open curtains and warm lavender sheets on which she had ended up enroused and covering little more than her left leg, her ass and the lower back, leaving the rest of her body exposed to cold and light.

Tissaia slept peacefully on the right side of the bed, unaware that someone was watching her from the windowsill. The same person who had opened one of the leaves to let the cold breeze enter the room was sitting in the small space that remained, with one leg raised and surrounded by one of her arms, her back resting against the frame and the other leg hanging, inside the room.

With a shiver, the mage huddled under the sheets and opened her eyes lazily. At first it took her a little while to focus her gaze and look at everything that surrounded her, certainly confused. Apparently she was in her bed, back in Aretuza, and everything was in order; she could see that all the books were where they belonged, the drawer grabbers of the dresser properly lined up, the doors of the closets closed and intact, a glass of water on her bedside table, Yennefer sitting at the window —watching her with a half smile and wearing one of her robes, which was remarkably adjusted given the size difference between the two of them—, the feathers neatly placed on the desk, parallel to the papers and books that had been tidy symmetrically before, and... Wait, what was Yennefer doing sitting at the window looking at her?

Tissaia suddenly came back to the present and sat down, realizing too late her mistake. She wasn't wearing a single piece of clothing, so when she moved to sit, the few parts of her body that had been hidden until then ceased to be, revealing every inch of her pale skin. The chestnut’s cheeks became intense red, due to such a situation, although her stomach seemed to empty when she realized that the look on Yennefer's face had changed; the beautiful violet color of her eyes had almost disappeared, being replaced with a black color, thus accentuating the hungry way in which she contemplated her body. At some point, Tissaia's breathing had become heavier and the heat had begun to spread through her body, concentrating more specifically between her thighs.

How was it possible that a single glance had just crumbted any kind of composure that someone in her position could have? Not to mention the terrible effects Yennefer was having on her biological functioning —accelerating her pulse, chopping her breathing, and most likely altering her synaptic connections catastrophically— in a matter of seconds. The situation, however, only worsened when Yennefer got out of the window and began walking towards her, carefully undoing the knot that kept the robe closed and letting both sides of the fabric open to reveal the olive skin under it. The brunette was wearing no more clothes than that and, if the rectoress had had a mirror, she would have seen that her reaction had been exactly the same as her former pupil had previously had while watching her, for there was little left of the blue of her eyes.

By the time Yennefer reached the bed and climbed into it, kneeling in front of the other woman, Tissaia had given up on her idea of keeping her eyes off or her hands still. On the contrary, the first thing she did was take one to Yennefer's neck and tangle her fingers in her black mane, then luring her to herself so she could kiss her. How could she not?

The younger woman’s lips felt soft and sweet against her own and melted into that kiss so carefully and tenderly that the two sorceresses could have died of happiness in that moment. The kiss continued and as the seconds passed, it became more intense, the atmosphere getting hotter and Yennefer's hands beginning to explore her former teacher's body again. Both had dreamed so many times of similar situations that it was hard to believe that it was real, that they were there, together, safe.

And that's exactly what made Tissaia react. She suddenly got away from the brunette, hissing when the woman's teeth sank into her lower lip more than desired due of the unexpected movement. The chestnut withdrew, using the sheets to try to cover her body in any way possible. She felt as if she was going to suffer spontaneous combustion at any time, the moisture between her legs causing her quite discomfort and make it harder to adopt a serious or indifferent expression, while her chest rose and lowered faster than usual, in short breaths.

"What the hell is going on, Yennefer?"

The dark-haired looked at her as if she had just gone crazy and then frowned.

"You mean besides I was about to make you scream my name in a very different way?" Seeing Tissaia widening her eyes, she curved her lips and smirked, "oh, come on, love, it’s not the first time I make you scream or beg in our bed," the brunette moved forward, still on her knees, and sat straddling the rectoress's lap, without setting aside the sheets and ignoring her complaints. She leaned forward, enough to whisper in her ear. "I'm glad to know that telling you what I'm about to do to you will only make you wetter," she bit her earlobe and smiled again.

"No... I mean, yes... But it's not that, it's..." Tissaia couldn't finish the sentence, needing to bite her lower lip to drown a groan. The other woman had just decorated her neck with a hickey that she would only be able to hide with magic, but somehow the only thing that bothered her about all that was having to bother hiding it, " what I mean is that I don't understand how we're here".

"Well, you wouldn’t let me fuck you in the corridor again, so you said that if I didn’t bring you to our room, I wouldn’t get to eat you out," despite what she said and the second hickey she let on Tissaia’s neck, Yennefer sounded sad that she couldn’t have just done that. Anyway, when she saw it was not the explanation Tissaia was expecting, she tried another angle. "Well... I wonder how we ended up here, too. I mean, you rejected me so many times when I proposed to you that I had almost given up hope that you'd ever accept".

That statement caused Tissaia to take her hands to the woman shoulders and gently push them, then seeking to fix her eyes on the woman's violet orbs.

"What?" The voice came out strangled from her lips and caused Yennefer's face to contort with clear concern and nervousness.

"Don't tell me you regret it... I mean... Tell me if you do, but it’s only that..." The brunette got off the magician and turned away from her to take a pillow and hug it, unable to leave her hands still.

"Of course, I don't regret it, I just don't remember marrying you or even having sex with you. And believe me, that's something I could never forget," feeling guilty, the chestnut came back to the younger woman and cupped her cheeks in her hands, with great care. Yennefer seemed so worried and suddenly frightened that the mere image threatened to break Tissaia’s heart. "Yen... There is nothing in the world that I want, desire or love more than you, than to be with you and to be yours in any possible way," Tissaia's forehead ended up leaning against other sorceress’, while stroking her cheeks with her thumbs, "so nothing in the world could make me regret the happiest day of my life… But I can’t remember it".

"Why can’t you remember?" A trembling whisper threatening to break the woman was all the brunette got, but nothing could stop tears from starting to escape from her glassy eyes and run wildly through her face and the hands that held her.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out, okay?" Yennefer nodded to her words and freed herself from her grip, so she could surround her body with both arms and take shelter among them.

Tissaia knew there was something wrong, her lack of memory evidenced it, but she could not stand still while the woman she loved was crumbling in her arms. Caressing Yennefer's back and drawing random patterns on it, the chestnut devoted the first hour of that confusing morning to making her wife calm down and regaining a minimum of emotional stability. Now they were both lying on the bed, hugging each other tightly as the sorceress's head rested on the rectoress's chest, exactly over her heart —the constant hammering of the shorter woman was one of the most reassuring sounds she had ever heard— and her left hand fingers intertwined with Tissaia's. 

"What's the last thing you remember before you wake up?"

The rectoress was aware of how difficult it should be for the woman on top of her to ask such a thing, but the least she could do was to give that conversation a try and trust that any information would help them think of some way to fix whatever was going on.

"I was in a kind of doorless cell, hanging from chains of dimeritium while a crazy man tortured me..." Unable to bear the image behind his eyelids, Tissaia chose to keep her eyes open and to distract herself by looking at Yennefer. Even if the world was over at that very moment, that image was the only thing she would wish to see until the end of her days. However, in the face of the "oh" that description provoked in her partner, the sorceress stopped talking and raised an eyebrow.

"That...... That happened twenty years ago," she quickly clarified, as she raised her body enough to look Tissaia in the eye, the worry back on her face, "Tissaia, my love, have you forgotten the last two decades?"

Tissaia's mouth had been dry while hearing those statements and she could almost swear that her heart had stopped beating for a moment. How was it possible that twenty years had just disappeared from her head? It was normal, then, that she'd been feeling oddly out of place all that time and the weird fell that something didn't fit; there was a fucking ocean in her brain, she just couldn't even call those gaps!

Yennefer realized how the older woman reacted and quickly took her face into her hands, forcing her to look her in the eye again. She whispered things Tissaia didn't understand nor hear, as she handed out kisses over her face and tried to get her attention, but it was almost impossible for the mage. Why would anyone want to steal her memories? Above all, knowing that memory spells were irreversible... Why forcing her to lose something she knew was as vital to her as her own chaos? Tears began to roll down her cheeks uncontrollably. While it was a certain reverse reflection of what had happened an hour earlier, all Tissaia could think about was how useless and how far from controlling the situation she felt. What good was in having the life she dreamt with the person she loved, if she could not remember a single moment?

She had always thought that Yennefer and she were traveling in opposite ways and that the more she knew the brunette, the stranger she seemed to be with her. Many times, she had even feared that there would come a day when Yennefer would not know who she was, when she would not recognize her. That possibility had hit her in the face, but in the opposite way, for it was she who did not recognize the life she had managed to build by her side. Tissaia could feel the emptiness inside her, but there was absolutely nothing to do to fill it. All she had left was to abandon herself in Yennefer's arms, while hopelessness took hold of her and began to consume her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't I say it would get darker? Well, stay seated :3


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, before reading let me remind you of the TW i've been giving since some chapters ago.
> 
> Also, as usual, italics are for thoughts, including telepathy, memories and that sort of things (no flashbacks yet). I hope you enjoy the chapter because I translated it as fast as I could due to your comments and how happy they made me (even if it were only about threatening characters, the comments really give me a lot of strenght and motivation, is nice to know someone is liking and enjoying the story).

The second time Tissaia opened her eyes, Yennefer was no longer with her.

She was alone again in her room, lying on the bed and naked, although the window was now closed and the light sneaking between the curtains was much more intense than the previous time. Despite being alone, the rectoress could feel the sorceress nearby, so she got up and walked to the closet, in search of something to wear.

Reality struck her again a second time when she opened the furniture’s door, for she not only found garments that belonged to her, but also some that were clearly from the brunette. Inside the closet there was no kind of order, so the woman frowned and began to divide the contents, with a frown, between the right —Yennefer's clothes— and the left —her own—, before choosing a gown to wear. Her choice was a dark blue pleated dress with a high collar, accompanied by ankle boots a couple of darker shades, but the same color.

Tissaia placed Aretuza's crest around her neck with great care, although part of her consciousness told her that this was not her place. She remembered leaving the pendant to Yennefer when that beast broke into her quarters and took her, but not the fact that the youngest one had returned it to her. With distracted expression, she stroked the cold pendant and approached the door connecting her room to her office, stopping with one hand on the doorknob when she heard a voice at the other side.

"So, she doesn't love us anymore?" It was a voice too high to be of one of her students, even if she did not remember them, she could know that.

"Of course she loves us, Mels, she just doesn't remember who we are," Yennefer's voice sounded much softer and kinder than usual, as if she were talking to a child.

"But mommy, how can she love us if she doesn't know who we are?"

Tissaia was squeezing the knob so hard that she was sure she could crush the metal in the palm of her hand. Her knuckles were white and her whole body had got cold in a matter of seconds, her breath trapped in her lungs as her mind worked at full speed. She could hear the whisper of the fabric as someone moved and then Yennefer's footsteps on the other side, slow but confident.

"Gods, you should have gotten my brain, not hers. It’s gonna be so unfair…" Yennefer sighed and then her voice became even softer "She can do it because deep down in her heart she knows that we are her family and even though she has forgotten us, nothing can erase what she feels here," Yennefer lowered her voice a little and the chestnut assumed that she would be pointing to Mels's chest… Whoever that Mels was.

Taking a short breath, Tissaia gathered as many forces as she could and opened the door, revealing her office on the other side.

In the middle of the room, Yennefer swayed on herself by cradleping a small body between her arms. This body belonged to what looked like a girl no more than five years old who had both arms curled around the neck of the sorceress and the face buried in the hollow of her neck, her hair was a dark brown color and her skin color somewhat darker than that of the rectoress’s, but lighter than that of the other woman’s.

Tissaia cleared her throat, thus drawing the attention of her former pupil, who turned to her with a clear expression of concern. Yennefer changed her gaze between the girl's body and the woman's at least three times, before opening her mouth to say something. But the words didn't come out. The older mage knew that it should be a very difficult situation to explain, so she shook her head softly, hoping that Yennefer would understand that she did not want to talk about it with the child in front of them.

However, the sound had also caught the attention of the little girl, who raised her head in a reflex act. Her features were quite defined for her young age, showing facial lines like those of the rectoress’s; her eyes, however, were bluish violet, vivid and curious.

"Mom!" A big smile lit up the little face, as the girl managed to get Yennefer to let go so she could run out towards Tissaia.

"Melody..." The brunette tried to keep her from slipping away, using a concerned voice, but it was in vain.

Tissaia acted instinctively, crouching down to catch the child before she crashed into her legs. The movement felt completely natural and familiar, but the woman did not remember doing it at any time before, even when Melody's small arms surrounded her neck and clung to it with all the force available to the girl.

"Mommy said you don't remember us," letting her head rest on the rectoress' shoulder, Melody tried to look at her from the corner of her eyes, keeping the distance between the two at the bare minimum, "is it true? Are you going to stop loving us now? I don't want you to stop loving us," she wrinkled her nose, her eyes filling quickly with tears.

"I... " Tissaia swallowed and looked the other way. The knot that had formed in her throat prevented her from speaking and the woman was unable to get rid of it. Emotions threatened to overwhelm her, her heart beating so fast and strong that she was sure anyone could hear it if they paid attention, and control was starting to slip between her fingers.

"Mom's not going to stop loving you, my love," Yennefer had approached and was surrounding Tissaia's waist as she used her own chaos to contain that of the rectoress’. It felt like a warm caress to her soul, but it also felt wrong somewhat. With her free hand Yennefer stroked the girl's back in gentle movements and then rested her head on her wife's free shoulder, "and I'm sure she'll soon remember us because we'll find a way to give her back her memory".

"Are we going to do magic?" Melody blinked to get rid of tears and smiled again, excited.

Yennefer looked at Tissaia, who nodded, still silently.

"Yes, we're going to do a lot of magic, so you have to go get dressed and do your homework while I talk to mom about how we're going to do the magic, okay?" The brunette was trying to sound excited, but the worry was leaking into her voice.

However, the little girl did not seem to notice it, as she left a kiss on Tissaia's cheek, another on Yennefer's cheek and then practically jumped out of her mother's arms to the ground to run away.

"I’ll go to the library with aunt Triss!" The girl used her best puppy eyes before finally getting out.

When the door closed behind Melody, the two women were left alone and silent. Yennefer's arm continued to surround Tissaia, so she pressed her against herself and left a kiss on her forehead, pretending not to see the tears that were beginning to roll down her cheeks, nor the way the chestnut now clung to her body, nor how her shoulders trembled with each sob. Sometimes, the hardest thing the relationship between the two of them had given them was the possibility of seeing each other's defenses collapse and how their interior was shattered into a thousand pieces; however, the best of it all was to be able to be there to collect the fragments and rejoin them.

* * *

Two weeks later, Tissaia's memories continued to be lost somewhere that neither she nor her wife could access. And that was the dammed problem with memory spells: if you used them, you’d better be sure of them, because time can’t be rewritten, so can’t be the memories. And they had tried dozens of spells, rituals and even a couple of invocations, but nothing could give them back the twenty years the mage had lost overnight.

Meanwhile the chestnut had tried to learn again everything she had forgotten, but many of her questions could not find an answer or those she was given were too vague. How had she escaped from the dark cell? What happened with Nilfgaard? Who had dismembered Stregobor? Who had named her leader of the Lodge of Sorceresses? When had they got married? What had the wedding been like? Why did Margarita officiate it? How had Yennefer regained her ability to conceive? Why were Sabrina and Triss in Aretuza? How had Yennefer survived Sodden Hill? Why did Melody look so much like both of them? Those were just some of the questions Tissaia asked from time to time, insisting on some of them when she didn't get answers —which was almost all the time.

It was frustrating not being able to get as much information as she needed and Tissaia was beginning to get tired of Yennefer saying to her that "it was too much in a very short time". No one better than her knew what her mind could bear, so the brunette had no right to be hiding so many things from her own life, even less if they were related to her family.

In a terrible mood, the woman found herself in need of taking a deep breath more than a couple of times and looked away from the chimney. She was sitting on the sofa in her room, her legs stretched over it and a small body curled up on top, covered only by a blanket hand-woven by herself.

Melody moved slowly as each breath caused her body to slowly climb up and down. Her two hands grabbed Tissaia's dress so tightly that the older woman was sure her fingers would hurt when she woke up, but nothing she did served to get the girl to let go. Yennefer had also fallen asleep, sitting on the floor with a book on her lap and her head resting on Tissaia's, in the small space Melody had left for it.

Tissaia had spent those two weeks in the company of her family —there was no other way to call them and she wouldn't look for it either, because family fit perfectly the two hot-headed girls she so much loved—, also she kept teaching magic in Aretuza with Yennefer, teaching Melody to read and write, walking with both of them through the gardens and the beach, weaving the girl's hair in various hairstyles until she found one who would convince her for the day, laughing at the occurrences and questions the little one had, sharing every night with her wife... That life was everything the mage had ever desired, so the idea of not being able to remember it broke her heart over and over again. If she could only recover a small part of all the beautiful moments she had lost from the two most important people in her life, perhaps the burden would be smaller.

Had it not been for the little tug on the fabric of the dress, Tissaia would have overlooked the soft little voice that spoke to her right after.

"Mom, can you tell me a story?" Her face was still hidden in the elder’s chest, but still her voice was audible.

"What story do you want?" Tissaia whispered, completely forgetting her anger and starting to caress the girl's hair.

"That of the magic gate to the kingdom of the dead".

"What...?" With a frown, she looked at Melody, "ignoring that it doesn't sound like a good fairytale, I don’t know such a story".

"But it's my favorite story," the girl threw her head back, letting the eldest see her watery eyes.

"She’s talking about the door to Fólkvangr," Yennefer murmured, yawning.

"I still think that's not something to talk a girl about... And why have we told her a story about the Forn Siðr? They are nothing but old useless myths and legends," she sounded annoyed, prompting Melody to drop a few tears. "Hey..." Sighing, she hugged the girl tightly and started cradling her, "don't cry, moon of my life. I really don't remember what the story you're asking of was about," despite her attempts, she could hear the girl sobbing and continuing to cry in her arms.

While she had just known her for two weeks, it was enough for the woman to notice the deep affection she felt for her and how important she was. The bond that had emerged between the two was incredibly strong to have been built just in a few days, but Tissaia assumed that her wife was right, and it was due to the fact that it was something that had always been there. Perhaps for that reason, the occasional thought that she would die to protect either of them did not seem so far-fetched. How can she avoid thinking such a thing, when peace on the Continent was as fragile as the emotional stability of an emperor? Moreover, while losing two decades of memories was indescribably harsh, the chance of losing her family, losing Yennefer or Melody was even worse. If she had to forget them, if she had to die, she would do it once and a hundred times before she let something bad happen to them. She wouldn't change anything that brought her there, not those times, not a single line, even if she didn’t remember them.

"Perhaps if I start with it, the rest would appear in your mind?" Yennefer had moved her head so that she could look her in the eye, remarkably concerned about the reactions of the other two—¡, "if that's all right with you, of course".

"Let’s give it a try," she bent down to kiss the brunette's lips and then left a tender kiss on the girl's hair.

"According to the ancient legends, there is a hidden place in the most remote point of the Continent that has been guarded since creation. That place is surrounded by magic and protected by the most powerful women ever born," Yennefer used her voice to make it sound like a mysterious and magical interpretation. The beginning of the story was vaguely familiar to the rectoress, but her mind could not catch the right thread to pull, "for only they have enough magic to keep us all safe."

"Like mom," whispered a little voice under Tissaia's chin.

"Exactly like mom," the mage left a kiss on her wife's arm and continued. "Thus, legends say that in this very special place is placed the only door that connects our world with that of the dead, because, after the Conjunction of the Spheres, the other seven worlds were destroyed and all its inhabitants were erased from existence," Melody's drowned cry was so rehearsed that the rectoress began to think about how many times they would not have told that story to the little one, "and the legends say that only a person with incredible power and descendant of the original magic people could find the door and open it with a secret key".

"Doesn't legends say that the opening of that door would cause a second Conjunction that would destroy the remaining two worlds?" Tissaia wasn't sure where that memory had come from, but Yennefer's frown implied that it wasn't part of this story.

"That's not how it goes, mom," Melody snorted dramatically.

"Mels, don't talk to her like that, it’s not her fault that she can’t remember it properly," with the girl's second sigh, Yennefer picked up the story. "It is said that one day, when the Black Sun deprives the world of its light again, it will be the only time when the chosen one will be able to use the key to open or close the portal forever, sealing everyone's fate with it".

"And what's the key? Where's the portal?" The girl turned her head back to look at the women, waiting for an answer. Yennefer set her eyes on Tissaia's, begging for help.

How did she expect her to know such specific details of an ancient legend she didn't even remember? With a deep sigh, the chestnut shook her head a couple of times and bit her lower lip. Where would she place an important portal, so it stayed hidden? Possibly somewhere near another existing portal... Someplace like The Tower of the Gull and Benavent’s Portal, perhaps.

"Well, if I had to hide a portal I would certainly do it in Tor Lara," she confessed, surprised to see the girl's stunned and excited expression.

"What about the key? Where is it? Can we open it?" Melody got rid of the blanket and climbed down the couch, ready to run out as soon as she had an answer.

"I don't know anything about any key, sweetie. Besides, I've only said where I'd put it, not that it's exactly there," but Tissaia's words were of little use, as the girl ran.

Yennefer and Tissaia exchanged a quick glance before getting up and running after her. Hopefully she couldn't get out of Aretuza, but given her parents' ability to do impossible things, nothing was assured. After all, everything was possible, even the impossible.

When the women went out into the hallway, there was no sign of the girl anywhere, so, with increasing concern, they headed down the lattice of corridors to the door that allowed them to leave the school. It was locked, but the water coming in from the outside through one of the windows of the same corridor led them to discover that it had stayed open, so it was obvious that the girl had managed to leave Aretuza and must be touring the island, under an intense storm, in the direction of the most dangerous place on a day like that.

Tissaia conjured the key and opened the door, allowing the brunette to go out first and check the surroundings. With a curtain of rain clouding the vision and turning off any torch that had been on, it was impossible to see anything at all. Through the alleys that were created between the buildings, streams of water descended, following the paths that they formed, until they found places to filter. It was Yennefer who invoked a magical light with enough intensity to light a couple of meters around them, while the fabric of their dresses started to soak and her weight increased considerably.

"We're not going to find her in this storm," Yennefer yelled to make herself heard above the rain, "shall we go up to Tor Lara?"

"It would be more useful to try a locator spell. It is impossible for her to get there with this weather, not without..." The wrinkle in chaos could not be clearer and closer, causing the rectoress to not finish speaking. Instead, she took Yennefer's wrist and ran. It was a channeling moment and the chaos imprint was way too familiar.

Tissaia did not think she was able to control her emotions at that point, so she preferred not to risk conjuring a portal so it could end up being highly unstable. So, despite the cold and difficulty of running between alleys with layers and layers of wet cloth, she deduced that this was the best choice in that situation. Yennefer was clearly confused, but did not complain, as they were going exactly where she had suggested.

Time moved in a curious way when all the senses were alert and the adrenaline reached every last corner of the body because the imminent danger was more than obvious. Seconds lasting hours and minutes lasting seconds; one way or another, both sorceresses ended up panting and exhausting, leaning against each other when they reached the top floor of the Tower of the Gull, followed by a trail of water and even lacking parts of some skirt too uncomfortable to continue advancing with it.

The top floor of the tower was composed of an elevated vault that was supported only by grey stoned columns, allowing wind, rain and any flying creature to pass through that room at will. In the center it was located Benavent’s Portal, an overly unstable and chaotic opening whose origins were based on another legend and which lacked a magical energy field so powerful that the consequences of teleporting nearby could be dire.

"Melody?" Tissaia's voice trembled, her hand devoid of sensitivity between the cold and the force with which Yennefer held her. "Melody Amelia de Vries where the hell are you?"

"Mels, my love, get out of wherever you are," the brunette was on the verge of tears, her whole body shaking, but her wife didn't have enough strength to try to control the chaos that escaped her control, causing an even more intense wind around them.

The problem was that there was nowhere to hide there, not without magic, but Melody did not have the ability or control to use it. Tissaia took a deep breath and looked around, focusing her chaos this time.

How could she not have noticed before? Hearing her thoughts, Yennefer reacted first. The woman ran out to one side of the tower and threw herself to the ground, trying to catch one of the small hands to which belonged the two fingers that peeked over the edge of the floor. The moment was precise, for just then, Melody's last forces failed and her fingers slipped, causing her to let go. While Yennefer had not counted on the girl's weight, that did not prevent her from holding her hand tightly, more than half of her body peeking over the edge and only her legs serving as a unique and weak anchor to the stone floor. The brunette tried to hold on with one hand, while Melody was crying, but that meant having to let go of one of the girl's limbs and she refused to do it, not while water only make everything more slippery.

Tissaia was running towards them now, but a strong change in the wind destabilized her and threw her several meters to the side. The same blow had also caused the other sorceress's only visible thing to be just a hand that stuck her fingers against the stone in an attempt to stay anchored to it; the rain and the wind hooting drowned out her screams, just as Melody's crying had and still was being suffocated. By the time the rectoress was able to reach the edge and hold Yennefer's hand, her arms were trembling from the effort and the fingertips were bloody. Not only did the rainwater fall down her face, but tears were hidden in a way that did not achieve the despair of her eyes.

"Yennefer, don't let go," Tissaia used her two hands to pull the brunette, the tears rolling equally down her cheeks, "I'm not going to let you fall".

"Open a portal! Use magic! Whatever!" Yennefer looked down, grasping the girl more tightly.

"I can't!"

"Yes you can! Everything you've felt, everything you've buried!" The brunette looked into the rectoress's eyes, with a bitter smile. "Forget the bottle! Let your chaos explode!"

Tissaia closed her eyes, trying to heed Yennefer's words, her own words, but just when she managed to do it, the brunette's hand began to slip among her own and all got shattered. The mage clung to her grip, but she was more concerned with maintaining it than she was with trying to control —or uncontrol, in that case— her chaos, so at the end, she was unable to do anything. Yennefer had noticed, so the next time she spoke, she did it in a much sweeter way. She had given up. She knew Tissaia couldn't make it. And Tissaia could only look at the eyes of the woman she loved and realize that, in the end, Yennefer had discovered how useless she was. How unable to protect the people she loved. How weak. How powerless.

"I love you, Tissaia," she smiled softly.

"Don't let go!" The chestnut screamed, without tearing her eyes apart. Her whole body trembled for the effort.

"I love you so much… And so does Mels," her fingers slipped a little more, leaving only one of Tissaia's hands to hold her.

"No! Don't let go! Yennefer! No!"

"You're not to blame for this, okay? Don't forget you were just consumed by your emotions, it’s not your f--" finally, her hand ended up slipping and she escaped Tissaia's grip.

"No!" The cry reached all over the tower, accompanied by a wave of magic. "Yennefer! Melody!"

With every word that left Tissaia's lips, a new shockwave of pure chaos left her body.

_'Just because we loved each other, that didn't mean we were meant to be together. Maybe we were never meant to be together. Maybe you should never have rescued me from that pigpen’._

_'Why do you say that?'_

_'If you’d never met me, then you’d never have to lose me'_

_'Yennefer, I can't let you die without knowing you are loved and I…'_

The cut in the mental connection between the two caused by Yennefer's death was so abrupt and harsh that Tissaia could feel part of her own life leaving her body at that instant. And despite knowing nobody was listening to her, she still continued.

_‘… I am sorry for everything I ever said to you. I am sorry for not protecting you as I promised. I am sorry for having dragged you here. I am sorry for making you die. I am sorry for not being strong enough. I am sorry for lying to you. And above it all, I am so sorry that my love for you was what killed you’._

Her throat was sore by her screams, her eyes swollen and still full of tears, her hands nailed to the edge of the tower and her knees found it difficult to continue holding the rest of her body, despite being already knelt. The despair that invaded Tissaia in that moment wasn’t nearly alike to the one she had felt in Sodden Hill, when she thought Yennefer had died, nor similar to the feeling she had the months that came after, while her mind and heart kept telling her that all of that had been her fault. Yennefer only came to Sodden because the sorceress had asked her to. She only let her chaos explode because the mage told her to. She had been wrong, after all, because unlike her, Yennefer did manage to let her chaos explode and save the Continent, while she hadn’t even been able to save two people from falling over a cliff.

It was too late when, finally, the emotions of Aretuza's impassive and callous rectoress came to light, dragging so much chaos and pain with them that Tor Lara's bedrocks began to tremble and crumble under her. What else had she to give? Who cared about anything else? What did the Continent matter? What did her own life matter now? What good had it done to her to be so powerful if, even so, she had not been able to protect the people she loved? Yennefer had done well not to trust her to help her, not to think that she could save them, for she would not have been able to do so. She wasn't enough and she would never have been, no matter how much she tried.

_'You weren't taking control, you were losing it.'_

_'It's your turn to save these people, this Continent, this is your legacy.'_

_'It's magic, it's not real.'_

_'Sometimes a flower is just a flower, and the best thing it can do for us is to die.'_

_'Balance and control,_ ' thought Tissaia, standing up. She had already lost control, what good would it do to keep her balance then? She just needed to lean forward to lose it too, willing to reunite with her family, one way or another.

_'Imagine the most powerful sorceress in the world.'_

_'Tissaia, can you hear me?'_

_'You still have so much left to give.'_

_‘It doesn’t matter who we were, it only matters who we are now.'_

_'Tissaia, we need you. I need you.'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry, you know... And I don't know where it was (maybe it wasn't even in this fic), but someone noticed something very important and I am not saying anything else until I can translate next chapter.
> 
> My tumblr is [witchesshadow](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/witchesshadow), just in case you want to be mad at me or let me know anything <3


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is short but enough things happen soooooo, enjoy!
> 
> Anyway, the 2 next chapters are going to be longer, so I thing that it will make it.

"H-how...?" The man recoiled, stumbling upon his own robe before falling to the ground.

The foundations of the dungeon had been shaken by the third wave of chaos, which was the only one that managed to overcome the inhibitions of dimeritium, as the metal was not able to absorb such an amount of energy unleashed in such a short time. That was fucking inhuman. The flame that enlightened the room had been consumed, but instead, a magical greenish light allowed the people on the room to identify the factions of a man in his late fifties, half bald but with the remaining hairs of a reddish-white color. The man wore a robe of expensive material and dark color adorned with gold embroidery and carried on his right hand a wooden staff that on top had a ensembled stone, which shone illuminating the room with green hues.

"The dimeritium was supposed to drain her chaos until it consumed her life, how on earth has she been able to take over?" The man's voice tremble with concern and something close to fear, as he stood up and looked beyond the woman suspended from the ceiling by black chains.

"She hasn't taken control, she's lost it," a voice replied, from the dark.

"To lose it she would have had to have it first… Wasn't she supposed to be asleep?" The man snitched his eyes, "has a simple sorceress defeated you, my lord?"

From behind the motionless body, the face of the being that made himself known as a god appeared. His face was paler than usual, his skin pearled by sweat and his nostrils moved remarkably every time he breathed deeply. Creating a psychic prison capable of deceiving that woman, despite the pitiful state she was in, had been a challenge even for someone who specializes in deception.

However, Tissaia had been able to free herself from her own mind. While the method had been abrupt and escaped the understanding of the god, it had been effective enough to drive him out of her mind. Possibly, the sorceress's mental barriers were weakened, but that did not imply that they were completely destroyed, as had been proven. After giving a trembling sigh, the coppery-haired man removed his hands —previously placed on both sides of the woman's head— and surrounded her body to confront Stregobor, with a murderous look on his crooked eyes and lips so that his rage and disgust were more than evident.

"Perhaps it is your fault for giving me such regrettable information," the god's left hand gripped the magician's robe, lifting him at least ten centimetres from the ground, so that his eyes would rise to the same height. The man's staff fell to the ground and the light blinked a couple of times, "you said she was smart and wouldn't do anything stupid, but she killed herself. You said she didn't care about anybody, but I had to get a stupid sorceress in and impersonating her to make her trust me. You said she was incapable of feeling emotions and you have no idea of how many of them she has, disgusting as it is. You said she had never shown superior power and she just dispelled the deception of the God of Lies".

"But master Loki, I didn't know..." Stregobor did not finish the sentence, for he was thrown against one of the walls, landing dangerously near the wolf who watched from the dark.

"At least it wasn't a total waste of time, I found the door, now we just needed to find the key," Loki stood in front of the woman and grabbed her chin with his right hand so he could use his left to hit her face with the back of it. "I know you've been awake for a while".

"Then... I don't understand why," Tissaia coughed, needing to expel the blood that was accumulating in her throat, "you don't understand that I'm ignoring you".

That was one way to look at it, anyway.

By the time before she had begun to fall, some of the moments she remembered best from the last century had come to her mind, passing before her eyes in a matter of milliseconds. Maybe it was true, and one did see their life passing by when you day… Maybe that’s why all she could see had been Yennefer. In addition to those memories, the pieces that had not finished fitting were linked to things that it had not been she who had said, but Yennefer. It was no wonder she had been thinking about the woman she loved when she was about to die, but it was strange that were those the quotes that had come to her mind and not just others. The brunette was right, that was magic, it wasn't real —because she would never let the people she cared about die as long as her heart kept beating, not if she could switch places— and while she wasn't sure Yennefer really needed her that time, she wouldn't be the one to give up, not without telling her how she felt about her, not a second time.

The problem was that there was a difference between knowing that her last two weeks of life had been a lie and getting them not to affect her. Her hope had been consumed. Her will was dangerously hurt. Her heart was broken. Her mind was shattered. Her soul was tired.

Tissaia had seen all her dreams fulfilled and shattered in fourteen days. She had lived with and married the woman she loved, they had had a daughter and formed a family, they were happy. Yennefer was happy —which had been the main thing that didn’t let Tissaia sleep at night. And within minutes, all that happiness was replaced by chaos, fear and despair, when her wife and daughter had fallen from the top floor of Tor Lara, leaving a dark and cold void inside the woman.

If she hadn't had the power to protect two illusions from her mind, in a dream, what made her think that she could protect a person from flesh and blood? What made her think she could protect her students, as she promised them she would? Her greatest fear made all the sense in the world, for even having become one of the most powerful women on the Continent, she had not the strength and skill to fight for the people she loved. Perhaps she had rushed to think that she should keep trying, that she should not give up... Did it really make sense to continue suffering when she would get nothing in return? Why being willing to see anybody she cared about dying just because of her? Did those weeks of torture do her any good? Keep fooling herself wasn't going to take her anywhere. While she didn't want to leave without Yennefer knowing she loved her, she didn't need to see her again to tell her that.

When she opened them, Tissaia's eyes were so lightly colored with blue that they almost looked white, only defined by her pupils and the blood vessels that reflected the inflammation of her orbs. Loki held the gaze of those cold eyes for a few seconds and then smiled.

The god could understand hatred, he could share anger, and he could see despair, but with Tissaia's hope having been consumed and the information he had extracted in those two weeks, he had more than enough to proceed. After all, luckily, he could use some stupid elf to open the door as soon as he found the key. He knew the chestnut didn't know where it was, so he didn't need her anymore. He knew that the woman had understood that, that she knew what fate awaited her, and that she was finally resigning to it.

"Let it be so".

Yes, Loki had promised useless Stregobor that he would eventually end the rectoress's life, but that didn't mean he was going to be the one looking her in the eye as it happened.

Without a word, Loki took one of the daggers he was carrying hung from his belt and offered it to the mage. Stregobor stood up and walked towards him to take the blade. He was unable to raise his head and look at Tissaia’s face, for he was too coward as to hold the gaze of the person whose life he was to end, not giving her any chance to defend herself. He did not feel particularly guilty in doing so, for it was the lesser evil, but the feeling of ending the cold war that had been unfolding among them for years was strangely bittersweet.

Tissaia, however, did not pay a minimum of her attention to the sorcerer, for it was not as if that man had come to care at all at any point of her life, or as if he had been more than a constant headache. No, her eyes were nailed to Loki's black orbs, challenging him to keep looking at her while the execution order was completed.

_'Yennefer, if you can hear me, I don't want to die without making you know I love you, without you knowing you are loved. Your greatest fear doesn't make sense because regardless of your appearance, I've always loved you… And if I said that still being a beauty nobody would love you, it was only because I was nobody. Even then I did love you and I will always love you. In this life and the next'_

A single golden tear managed to make its way through the moisture in her eyes, rolling slowly down her cheek, and, as the god saw the golden drop roam Tissaia's face, his lips twisted into an indecipherable grimace, halfway between a smile and the purest state of hatred.

Neither of them looked away when the whole dagger blade finally pierced the sorceress's chest at heart level.

The woman's eyes opened much more in the face of sudden pain and her lips gave rise to a silent cry, for even after her surrender, she refused to give them the pleasure of listening to her suffering.

"When you get to Fólkvangr, give your mother my regards," finally, the only expression left on the face of the god was a triumphant smile, "tell Freyja it was me".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have all the right to scream and be mad, I won't complain. I know what I did and yes, chapters 8 and 9 were just physchological torture, as Jay1892SG, Edgy_cold and SassySappho said...
> 
> And "the lesser evil" was the torture because killing Tissaia on the real world, as someone may have done (ooooops?) was the greater evil. Sorry guys.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It sucks, but I am not very inspired with this one (uni is consuming me). Anyway I wanted to give you something from this fic, because I am not abandoning it (though maybe it will be super slowly updated until after my finals aka next 2 months, sorry).
> 
> Probably Love the stars themselves will be more regular, now that I will only have to translate the next ten chapters, 'cause I have them all written (and yes, it will have +20 chapters full os angst, sorry).
> 
> Anyway, I am now shutting the fuck up and letting you read, feel free to comment anything!

Since the night the five sorceresses met with the Witcher and the plan they would follow had been agreed upon, all of them concluded that Yennefer should remain in the cabin, for that was the only safe place for her on the entire Continent. Sabrina and Triss would return to Aretuza to make sure everything was under control and that Stregobor was kept at bay, while it would be Margarita and Philippa who would travel to Nilfgaard in search of Tissaia. Sharing her days with the Witcher wasn't exactly the sorceress's —who spent much of her time doing her best to avoid it— dream but even she knew it was the best option everyone had to make the plan work.

Ciri was delighted to have the mage with her, which allowed her to have someone to hang out, when Geralt and Jaskier took care of their marital affairs, and practice magic with. While Yennefer loved to share her time with the white-haired girl, there was nothing she hated more than not being able to do anything to find the rectoress. Every spare moment she had was used to try to explore the strange connection between the two of them, but for two weeks, only emptiness and silence received her. It was as if Tissaia had closed herself to her, as if her heart did not allow her to reach inside the woman, as if her soul was isolating itself. But that wouldn't stop Yennefer from reaching her up, trying to find her, even if she had nothing but darkness and the distance that now was between them. It wasn't going to be that easy to get rid of her.

When Cintra's lion cub left her for a bath, ending her daily training with it, the brunette decided to skip dinner to head to one of the cliffs near the house. It wasn't a special place, but it offered a little higher view than the roof of the house and was far enough away from it for no one to see a single drop of weakness in her. Letting other people know she wasn't well, that she had emotions, or that she could be hurt, wasn't something she was keen to.

Silently, Yennefer sat on the cold stone and crossed her legs, then she closed her eyes. Trying to project her thoughts didn't work, she had tried hundreds of times despite knowing that dimeritium would stop her, but it was never too much, even if it meant wasting a small part of her chaos. Since the transference was as useless as ever, the brunette took a deep breath and tried to leave her mind blank.

However, every time she tried to stop thinking about everything, there was only one thing that came to her mind. A thought that never left her head. A beautiful perfect face that was always present in her mind. A memory that would never go away. Nothing was ever forgotten, not completely, and, if something could be remembered, it could come back. So, if the only way she could help Tissaia stay alive and come back, was to remember her, she would do it until the end of her days, for nothing and no one could rip that woman out of her heart. And she did try for the last five decades. Yennefer raised one of her hands to caress fondly the pendant that rested on her chest, while a tear rolled down her cheek. Why was she crying? Why was she suddenly sad? She didn't understand what was going on, she didn't remember anything happening.

_'It's magic, it's not real,'_ she thought to herself.

Cold. Wind. Rain. The sound of a body hitting the ground. Waves. A heartbreaking cry.

_'Tissaia, can you hear me?'_ Could she? Two weeks of silence were starting to scare her.

Darkness. Silence. Emptiness. Pain. Sadness.

_'Tissaia, we need you. I need you.'_

Emptiness. Hopelessness. Death. Fear. Chaos.

Yennefer opened her eyes, ignoring the tears that fell from them and stopped the movements of her hand. It had been weak, momentary and remote, but... But it had only been a product of her mind because dimeritium did not allow any control of chaos, so it was impossible for Tissaia to have been able to overcome the effects of that fucking disgusting metal. She knew that she was possibly one of the most powerful sorceresses on the Continent, but she also knew that she was not invincible, that she was not immortal, that she was not strong enough. Yennefer frowned, annoyed, for those were not her thoughts… Tissaia couldn’t die, she was like the stars; nobody ever questioned when they were born nor if they would even die. Why were those things in her mind then? Why that deep sadness and that feeling insufficiency?

Tissaia was the strongest woman she had ever met, she was intelligent, beautiful and powerful; she was everything the mage aspired to, her role model and the person she had admired most; she was the one who could fix her day with a tiny hidden smile, who just needed to look at her to make sense of her life; she was her sun and her stars; she was the one who could make her cross the entire Continent just by asking for her, she was the only person she would fight for in a war and the only one for whom she would win it. It may have taken her decades to realize all that, but now that she had finally done so, she wasn't willing to stop fighting, even if she was the only one doing it. She would fight for Tissaia and herself, if the rectoress was too tired, but she just needed her to hold on a little more.

"Even if you give up..." Yennefer whispered and she carefully cradled the school crest, "I'm still not going to do it," the young woman swallowed the knot in her throat before continuing. "You didn't give up on me, you wouldn't let me die. So I'm going to find you, I don’t care who stands between you and me, I'm going to find you and I'm going to take you back home, back to Aretuza, back to me… And I am not leaving this time, so you’d better be prepared because I’m going to keep making you age prematurely".

Her jaw trembled too much to allow her to continue, so she simply closed her eyes and let her body channel all her emotions, for to her it was impossible at that point.

* * *

When Yennefer woke up, she didn't open her eyes immediately. She turned on herself and curled up in a fetal position against the soft heat source, consisting of a small body resting next to her in the guest room bed. The light coming through the window of the room was too intense for it to still be early, so, with a growl, the young resigned woman sighed and opened her eyes to find out where that warmth came from.

Huddled against her was a feline of bluish fur, with amber eyes staring at her, it was something bigger than a cat, but not enough to be placed within any species that the sorceress recognized. Yennefer held the creature's gaze for a few seconds, but eventually dropped it and turned, so that its eyes were stuck in the bed. Setting aside that she did not remember returning to her room or letting an oversized cat into it, she felt strangely empty and cold. While the best part of her felt safe, as if someone had erased some of her fears, another part of her had the feeling that she had lost something important, something she was unable to name or locate right now.

The feline moved just enough to lay its head on the sorceress's chest and sniffed the pendant resting on it. In a quick movement, the brunette covered it with one of her hands, protectively, and turned to glare to the creature with a deadly look.

"You can't touch that, not without her permission," to her own surprise, the mage said those words aloud. As if the feline was going to understand it.

"My apologies, sorceress, I didn't think it was important to you," the voice was from a female, but no one else was in the room where it happened.

"Of course it is," Yennefer turned again, forcing the creature to raise its head and look at her face again, "you wouldn’t understand… Anyway, are you the one talking, strange kitty?"

"No," it replied, "you're the one who's understanding me".

"What are you doing talking to yourself, spare-me? If you go crazy, you're not going to be able to be a good version of me when I die. Do I look crazy? No, love, so you better stay sane," Jaskier's frowning head was peeking out the door, a curious look on his face.

The young woman turned to look at the bard with a killing look.

"I'm not talking to myself, you idiot," with a snort, the woman stood up and stretched out one of her arms to point to the bed, "I was talking to that!"

"Yennefer, dear, there's nothing there..." The chestnut man decided to walk into the room and close the door behind him, he came up to the bed and took a seat on it, "look… I know we've always had our differences and I can't imagine how hard this must be for you. I really can’t".

"No, you can't, Jaskier," the woman took a few steps, trying to avoid any kind of conversation at all costs.

"I did just say that," the man rolled his eyes, "but I also know that I would go crazy too if something happened to Geralt," he fidgeted on his lap, without taking his eyes off the woman’s body, "so I understand how it feels like when the person you love is away from you and in danger, how hard it is to maintain sanity and hope that he will return to your arms and that he will be safe again among them," he sighed. "So, as your trusted bitch, because I refuse to have this Sabrina steal my position, I'm going to help you beat up Nilfgaardians until they tell us where they got your girlfriend. Alright? Alright".

"I don't even know if she has feelings for me, Jaskier, calling her girlfriend is very daring even for the two of us," yet the young woman's lips had curved in a subtle way.

"Nothing is too daring for us," he reached out with one hand, waiting for her to take it and sit next to him to continue, "if that cold witch doesn’t ask me for your hand, she’s a bloody idiot. So, meanwhile, try not to go crazy and let us help you, because clearly I'll be the one to wear the rings on your wedding day, so you better hurry up and get her to ask you," he winked, taking out a little laugh from Yennefer. "That's much better... Now, the kids have gone to train, which means we have the house to ourselves and, since Geralt won't let me throw parties in here… How about emptying a barrel of ale between the two of us and see who can take more?"

"It seems to me that you just signed your death sentence, Jaskier," the brunette squinted her eyes, and sketched a devilish smile, "you're not going to beat me in your life".

"We'll see about that, honey".

* * *

It wasn’t even noon when Jaskier couldn't stand one more drink and his head fell on the table with a dull blow. Yennefer had thought that the sound it would make would be more like hitting something hard and hollow, but, to the surprise of the mage, the young man did have something inside that tiny head that he used for little more than to wear hats or think new songs. It was still a while before Ciri and Geralt returned from the woods, if they hadn't taken something to eat and decided to come back for dinner, which would be no wonder to any of the inhabitants of the cabin. That was one of the main reasons why Yennefer could not blame the bard for his stickyness, for she was more than aware of how lonely and boring a man like him could be, held on the mountain and alone most of the time. Jaskier was the kind of person who needed constant attention so as not to die, and yet he had preferred to isolate himself from the whole world if that guaranteed that his short time of human life would be spent in the company of the person he loved.

The brunette could only envy her friends, for she herself had been unable to make a decision like that and stay with Tissaia when she asked her. Because yes, centuries ago Tissaia had asked him to stay with her in Aretuza instead of going to court, to teach magic to new sorceress. When Yennefer turned down the offer, Tissaia said she would look for her and give her the kingdom where she could feel most comfortable, she promised Aedrin and gave her Nilfgaard, so the young woman was forced to take what had been promised to her through other means.

She rarely stopped to think about the night of the ball, how Tissaia's chaos reacted to hers, or how she looked at her from across the room as she made her triumphant entrance. Both women had lost something that night. For many years they had both tried to convince themselves that it had been what they both wanted, but deep down, they knew it wasn’t. The chestnut thought she wanted to return to her routine and maintain order on the Continent, Yennefer thought she wanted to go to Aedrin on the arm of a simple king. Unfortunately, every time the young woman's mind returned to that night, all she could think about was what might have changed so that she hadn't felt bleakly empty for so many decades, so she could have been satisfied.

As was customary, her hand wandered to the pendant and clung to it tightly, then caressed it with great care, as if it was the most precious thing in the world. Somehow it was, because she knew that, somehow, Tissaia had left it behind for her, that she had entrusted it to her while leaving the school in her hands. What was she supposed to do then? If she had really left Aretuza's protection in her hands, hiding in a cabin in the Hertch Mountains was not exactly what was expected of her, even if Stregobor kept sticking his nose in Thanedd, now that Tissaia was not there to kick him out. With her head somewhat affected by the incredible amount of alcohol she had consumed herself, the young woman laid down in the chair and closed her eyes, aware that she would have a hard time getting to bed without falling halfway. However, when something warm and moist stroked the skin of her hand holding the pendant, Yennefer suddenly opened her eyes and tried to pull away the crest, only to find again the feline of blue fur.

"I'm too young to develop dementia," she protested and closed her eyes again, "come back in a century, please".

"Do you have dementia problems, sorceress?"

"Yes, and the problem in particular is a big, blue cat that speaks to me, but me alone, so only I can see it," she muttered, her words slow.

"Would you feel more comfortable if I were a different creature?" With an agile movement and transforming at half a jump, the creature was placed on the table, now looking like a small deep blue cat with golden eyes. "Will this be enough?"

Yennefer widened her eyes and frowned, admiring her incredible imagination. The feline waited patiently, sitting at the table and staring at the mage, until she got a reaction.

"What? What do you want? Are you my conscience or something? Because I don’t feel fucking guilty".

"I want you to come with me and no, I'm not your conscience. Though you do feel guilty," the cat tilted her head, without blinking. "My name is Bygul, by the way".

"And what are you then, Bygul? A hallucination? Is it some drug?"

"None of that and all at once," the creature confessed, "I can change shapes and not everyone can see me, just as my essence is purely magical and depends on a precise transference of chaos, as you name it," the creature's ears rose, alert to noise outside. "Your non-human friends are coming this way, so you'd better prepare. I'll be back tonight and I hope you're ready to go then".

"What? Where do you want me to go?" The wrinkle on Yennefer's forehead was further accentuated, but Bygul merely blinked, confused.

"I thought you'd want to find whoever gave you that," with one of its paws, it pointed to the pendant. Yennefer rose from the chair in such a sudden motion that the whole room began to spin around her and the only thing that kept her from falling to the ground was her grip on the table.

"Do you know where Tissaia is? You have to tell me, kitty" with her eyes closed, the brunette growled that demand, unable to hide her despair.

"I know where her body is currently, but you're not in a state of going to retrieve it right now, sorceress".

"What do you mean _by 'her body'?_ " Yennefer didn’t know how she was able to swallow the knot of her throat to pronounce those words, tears rolling freely down her cheeks.

"I'll be back tonight, please get everything ready by then. Even with her heart out of her chest, she deserves better than a drunk crying girl".

And, without saying anything else, Bygul disappeared just as the cabin door opened to make way for a exhausted Ciri and an indifferent Geralt. Not being able to care less about the interruption or being seen in that nervous state, Yennefer continued to tremble as the crying overtook her. Her knees eventually gave way, forcing her to rest her hands on the ground if she didn't want to end up lying on it, even though it wasn't something she really cared about. Ciri's arms around her body trying to comfort her only served to make her sobs audible and the little control left for the brunette to escape between her fingers.

At some point, Geralt decided to help the girl take Yennefer to her bed and lay her on it, letting her continue with her cry on it —ignoring it when Yennefer tried to punch him and curse him. He didn't have to be too smart to realize that something was going too wrong, so the Witcher decided that it would be best to communicate his suspicions to the sorceresses, through an enchanted paper they had left him to contact them in a matter of seconds if something happened. Thus, taking into account the disastrous state of Yennefer and how inconsolable she was for hours, Geralt took the paper and wrote five simple words with his best calligraphy, then he wrote down the names of two sorceresses, brought the paper closer to the chimney and let it be consumed in the fire.

> _"I think Tissaia is dead"_
> 
> _Triss Merigold_
> 
> _Margarita Laux-Antille_


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to re-write this chapter and the next one (I lost all my pc files as I said in the other fic), so they are not what I initially wanted to do, but I couldn't manage to get something alike, so that is what came out instead, sorry.
> 
> Italics for mental things / flashbacks / emphasis.
> 
> Anyway, sorry for the delay, the universe is getting opposed to me posting this story hahaha

The response to Geralt's message was almost immediate. The night had slowly broken and only a couple of hours earlier he and Ciri had dared to move Yennefer to bed. Jaskier had prepared a couple of infusions for her, but the brunette refused to eat or drink anything, so the bard ended up resigning himself to walking in the living room under the Witcher’s attentive and thoughtful gaze. The only person the mage had let stay in her room was Ciri, probably because of the relationship that had begun to blossom between the two and because she refused to let the woman go, narrowing her tightly even as she tried to push her away.

Two portals opened in the living room with a difference of a few seconds, one giving way to Margarita, the other to Triss and Sabrina. The Witcher’s trained eyes were the only thing that allowed him to see nuances through the enchantments that all sorceresses had placed around their bodies to hide swollen eyes and traces of tears. Jaskier, however, looked at them all with both eyebrows raised, fascinated by the difference in self-control of women compared to their friend; of course, he thought, they weren't in love with that moody old woman.

"What happened? Where is she?" Margarita's voice was much more serious and scratchy than usual, giving away that in addition to crying, she might have been screaming.

Geralt growled and stood up to guide the women to the guest room.

"When we came back, she was drunk, shaking and crying non-stop. When she fell to the ground we tried to move her, but she almost broke my nose and set the living room on fire, just to push me away. Ciri was the only one who could stay with her," once at the door, he opened it and shook his head in the direction of bed. "I couldn't think of any other reason that makes her behave like that."

"Didn't she say anything?" Sabrina had Triss surrounded by one arm, allowing her to hide her face against her chest so that no one would see her cry, "where's Yennefer, Geralt?"

"She's in there, I left her with Ciri," the white-haired man pointed to the bed, but as he turned her head to look at her, he only saw the girl's body lying on it. There was no sign of the sorceress.

The Witcher passed a hand over his face and let out a new growl.

"Great, so we don't just have to assume that... That. And no we have lost Yennefer," Margarita snorted, leaning against the wall and closing her eyes. None of them had felt Yennefer chaos, but they thought it was because she had expended it all.

"We have to find her... " Triss's voice barely reached the ears of her girlfriend, who nodded softly and began to caress her hair.

"Rita, do you think you can track her down if we give you something of hers?"

"I can try, but you should go back to Aretuza, if she really... If Tissaia is really… Like that," she couldn’t just say it aloud, "Stregobor will take control as soon as he gets the chance".

Sabrina nodded and opened a new portal, dragging Triss through it. The portal remained open a little longer, allowing Sabrina to return to give something belonging to Yennefer to her former teacher. Rita was surprised when in the cloth that now rested on her hand, she saw that there had been wrapped a dried flower. Why would Yennefer keep a dry flower? While her appearance was unfamiliar, the young mage did not look like the kind of person who collected strange plants.

_'Tissaia had it in a small glass box in a drawer on her desk,_ ' Sabrina transferred her thoughts as she passed through and closed the portal. The young woman overlooked the detail that the drawer had been magically secured until the night before, when the chaos surrounding it disappeared. _'Something tells me it's Yenna's, that's all I have that could do… And that’s all Tissaia had from her.'_

The sorceress nodded and devoted a quick glance to the two men who were accompanying her at the time. She knew that for some reason she didn't know, the Witcher wasn't Yennefer's favorite person, so asking him for help while looking for her would be the last of her options. With little more than a word, she said goodbye to both of them and went outside the cabin, where she began to perform the locator spell that, with luck and chaos enough, would lead her to the black-haired woman.

* * *

Bygul had transformed into a large feline, similar to a lioness, but as agile as a lynx and much faster. The creature's legs moved on the ground at such a speed that Yennefer even doubted that they were supporting them at all, with the shear wind being the only sound that reached her ears, dampening the constant hammering of her heart. They had left for several hours —leaving Hertch and the cabin behind in a matter of minutes— and had already crossed Nilfgaard's border and past Toussaint.

The sorceress was tired, her hands beginning to grip by the way they were fastened to Bygul's fur to maintain balance on the creature. Bygul had apologized before leaving, as she assured her that at another time the journey would have been much more comfortable and faster, but in those times they were into, they could not risk exposing themselves that way, not when the ghosts of the past had decided to be present again. Thus, Yennefer rode a large blue feline at such speed that no one would distinguish more than a blur on the horizon which would no longer be there when they blinked.

Bygul stopped a mile away from an ancient castle, now in ruins and the mage did not lose a single second to jump to the ground, falling on her own knees and using her palms to hold hersef by resting them against the dirt. Everything around her was spinning and the woman was almost certain that her whole self was still going down the first mountain yet; however, the feline struck her shoulder with its snout, seeking to draw her attention.

"Just a moment, kitty," Yennefer took a hand to the pendant, caressing the engraving fondly. Everything seemed to calm and settle down in that exact moment, offering some peace and warm to the brunette; not everything was lost. For something to live, something had to die, "and now I am ready," the young woman whispered, answering now the question her mentor had asked her one dark night, in Sodden, in what looked like a long time ago.

"Dimeritium will make you feel sick as soon as you get close, sorceress. Could you carry me all the way?" The creature changed its shape and became a blue handkerchief.

The woman rolled her eyes, not understanding why she asked her if she would later do whatever she wanted, but she still took the handkerchief and placed it around her neck, chewing some things between her teeth. Yennefer stood with some difficulty and gave herself a few seconds to take a deep breath, as the world stabilized around her and her feet stepped on the ground more consistently. Bygul no longer spoke, but the mage realized that she had only been doing it so as not to frighten her, for her body began to move, as if it knew where she was going. It was something like the transfer of thoughts, but based on impulses and ideas, much more basic and primordial.

Slowly and carefully, maintaining all her magical essence hidden, the sorceress approached the ruins and moved between them. Many of the stones had been sprinkled with dimeritium; in others, someone had simply placed some piece of black rock, as a guard. Those ruins were not a prison for mages, they were just the door and they were becoming hardly passable; were they there to keep someone inside or to prevent someone from entering?

_'It's normal, but it's just the beginning, the passageways will be worse_ , _sorceress_ ,' Bygul said, somehow.

"My name is Yennefer, not sorceress," whispered the woman, taking a new deep breath.

_‘I know, but my mistress advised me against getting attached to human pets_ _’._

"Did you just call me pet?"

Bygul didn’t answer back, so Yennefer merely rolled her eyes and continued to advance until she found some stairs, hidden between two semi-detached columns. The presence of dimeritium was so abundant that the young woman needed to stop and take a deep breath one last time before going into the dark, her hand finding Tissaia's pendant and clinging to it, as if her life depended on it; she was aware that it would be the last time she breathed comfortably before leaving the place with Tissaia's body, so she’d better enjoy that moment. Two steps were enough to reach the first stone step and plunge into darkness.

_‘If this was meant for me, why does it hurt so much? And if you're not made for me, why did I fall in love?_ ' Yennefer knew that no answer would come, that those thoughts would remain buried in her head and in her heart, but a part of her whished that wherever Tissaia was, she could hear her.

The sorceress didn't want to get attention, so she didn't even brag about catching a torch or using any kind of light to guide her by the labyrinthine passageways full of dimeritium. However, it was then that she thanked to be accompanied by Bygul, as it was the creature who began to guide her in the dark, telling her exactly how many steps to take and in which direction. Although Bygul did not speak, Yennefer knew that it was she who was giving her the directions with that strange way of communicating ideas that she had; if she took a step further to the right, she would touch the dimeritium wall, if she turned left at the next junction, she would fall into a moat... Each step was precise and careful, despite the sweltering sensation of the amount of dimeritium around her —she was having a hard time breathing, she was dizzy, she was cold and the feeling of her body losing some sensitivity was increasing every time, starting with her feet and legs.

After about fifteen minutes walking down the dark corridors, Bygul told Yennefer to stop and stick to the wall, without touching it. The brunette had felt a close presence, despite the disgusting amount of dimeritium. She did not know where, nor who it was, but they were cold, twisted and unpleasant; they weren't even like a monster, so it was clear they weren’t a being of that world. Yennefer held her breath and forced herself not to make a single noise, even though she no longer felt her hands’ fingers.

"This has certainly been unexpected, but let's not waste any more time," a male, grim, mocking voice, despite the furious nuance of his voice, "stories are memories that were forgotten, and you will soon be little more than a tale to scare the children or the mages that don’t behave".

A bobbing, halfway between a laugh and a growl drowned in blood followed that comment. Yennefer’s stomach dropped to the ground, for she could only imagine a poor soul being tortured by whatever humanoid thing on that room.

"Everything is ready in Aretuza, my lord. There'll be a black sun in thirteen days".

Yennefer recognized that second voice instantly. Stregobor… The Spheres had to be fucking kidding her.

"I don't understand why nothing works, but I'm sure that bag of shit just wants to waste our time, so we miss our chance," Stregobor continued to talk, though it sounded much more submissive than the brunette remembered.

"You shouldn't have underestimated me," the whisper was so hoarse, that at first the young woman didn't recognize the person who was talking, "a good sorceress never takes her heart into a battle, and mine is safe and in good hands," Yennefer's eyes widened as much as humanly possible, flooding with tears instantly and her hand raised to cover her lips and drown any sob. The brunette hand, the one that wasn’t on her mouth, kept holding the school crest tightly, even though she couldn’t almost feel it against her numb fingers. There was only one person who could have enough poise to say that while she was dying, choking on blood and with her throat sore from screaming; besides, it wasn’t as if that was the first time Yennefer heard Tissaia saying they should leave behind their hearts and emotions if they wanted to survive in the battlefield, "but of course, what's an assassin of innocent girls going to know about being a good mage? Which explains why you’re not even part of the Council of Wizards," a cough and probably blood being expelled by her mouth prevented the woman for keep talking, "no wonder Ban Ard has such shitty results if you are still a teach--"

Tissaia's words were followed by a flash of greenish light that gave away the position of the entrance to what the cell should be, and a heavy muffled knock. Yennefer didn't understand how it was possible for they to be using magic with all the dimeritium around them, but it wasn't something that would worry her at the time, not when Tissaia was there and they were torturing her.

_'Don't move, sorceress, we must wait for them to leave.'_

That cat-scarf had to be joking. She couldn't stay there and let them hurt the rectoress even more... She’d get herself killed trying to protect her before letting any of those two monsters hurt the woman she loved.

_'Control your chaos'._

_'What?'_

_'I haven't said anything, but since you ask, calm down. If they find you, they'll kill you both.'_

The brunette clenched her jaw, ready to take the first step, when suddenly the only image in her mind was that of Tissaia rolling her eyes as she called her dangerous and irresponsible. The image didn’t stop on the rectoress’ face, for Yennefer could feel the woman’s arms around her and her own head was resting on her chest. Yennefer stopped, quietly cursing Bygul for using the only thing that could stop her in that instant; because it was clear that it was the creature that was putting words and images of Tissaia in her mind to prevent her from making some stupid mistake, right? There was no other way that could be happening.

"Either way, she won't be able to get out of here, so she won't be a problem for longer," Stregobor almost seemed to be asking that, "and even if she gets out, by the time she could reach Tor Lara, it'd be too late. We must go to now and prepare the ritual".

"Do you have the elf sorceress?" Asked the grim voice.

"Quarter elf," that comment caused the woman to wallow, ringing her chains. In that moment, the image behind Yennefer eyelids was a meeting of the Chapter, they were talking about the kingdoms’ next mages.

_She was sitting in the floor by Tissaia’s legs when Stregobor started talking about Cintra and Tissaia whished him luck with Calanthe. The next to speak was Artorius, who asked about Nilfgaard to Vanielle —who carefully measured all her words, until the idiot had to be much more explicit, of course— and the conversation went to Fringilla, when Tissaia assured them the girl would do good work there. Stregobor thought differently and he didn’t hesitate when he talked about it, even less when he asked Tissaia "how about your hunchback protégée? How’s her… Spine?" when Artorius talked about someone with more than his own niece._

_Yennefer could see how Vanielle moved on her own seat, glancing Tissaia sideways, as if wanting to reach and take her hand. The sorceress had never stopped to think if Tissaia had any friends, but she felt better now that she knew at least one person was kind with her —until she remembered Vanielle was dead, then she cursed silently… How much did the rectoress lose at Sodden?._

_"We agreed Yennefer would thrive in Aedrin. King Virfuril prefers mages from his kingdom, and Yennefer was born in Vengerberg"._

_"Oh, we’d be spitting in Dagorad’s face if we send Yennefer to their biggest trade parner," Stregobor was quick to reply, sarcasm and mock painting his voice, “the only thing Cintra hates more than mages is… Elves," he was having a hard time trying to hide his smug smile._

_Tissaia was clenching her fists on her seat and the eyes of her best friend were as deadly as a silent spell, but luckily, she didn’t add her chaos to the mix. Yennefer herself wanted to rise and punch him in the face. Now she had proof that Tissaia hadn’t lie at her —well, she knew before, but she never wanted to believe Istredd would have betrayed her like that—, not that she needed it anyway. But the way Tissaia and Stregobor were looking at each other, pure hatred reflecting on their eyes…_

_"Yennefer’s of elven blood?" Artorius completely ignored Tissaia, his eyes fixed on his friend. Now it was Francesca who moved on her seat, uncomfortable with where the conversation would be moving._

_"Quarter elf," answered Tissaia, grasping the last threads of her self-control._

_Yennefer could feel her anger as if it was hers… Maybe… She closed her eyes, trying to open herself to Tissaia. The emotions flood her quickly: anger, concern, anxiety, fear, even… Love? Tissaia was concerned with Yennefer going South, with the fact that a handy king —with no intentions of listening to he, but to use her for his pleasure— would be too close to her protégée, she couldn’t allow those idiots to take Yennefer’s position in Aedrin only for Fringilla to stay ‘safer’. For fuck’s sake, she didn’t raise useless mages, that wasn’t Ban Ard, that was Aretuza, and her girls where the best of that fucking Continent. It was bad enough that she would have to see Yennefer moving away from her, not giving a damn about her, for now to have those imbeciles talking about her as if she wasn’t more than a tool…_

_"Watch a Cintran do math," Stregobor joked._

_"Let’s not model our wisdom on prejudice and paranoia," bite back Tissaia, her heart pounding at her chest and her breath not as regular as it should. Francesca glanced at her, grateful for her words._

_"Prejudiced or not, you can’t deny Cintra has operated outside our influence far too long," Artorius stated._

_"Unchecked kings and queens lead to rebellions. Massacres," Stregobor added. Yennefer was starting to feel her jaw aching and only had to look up to see Tissaia’s was tense enough to cut a rock. No wonder the woman had migraines so often, if all the Chapter meetings were like that one, "it’s the reason this Chapter was form"._

_"Still afraid of Falka, are you?" Yennefer could feel the small pitching on the rectoress voice, but it was obvious she was going to counter Stregobor attack with all she had. Nobody messed with her girls and nobody touched her Yennefer. Wait. Did Tissaia feel something for her already? If that was the case, why didn’t she say something? Wherever that chain of thought was leading Yennefer, it never came to an end, for Tissaia kept talking when Stregobor retreated,_ "and you, you spare your niece her duties? Not enough fragrance on Toussaint to take the stench off that nepotism," _the comment made Yennefer smile and, when she looked around, she saw Francesca, Sheala and Vanielle trying to hide their agreement with that statement, the last one even taking a hand to her mouth to cover her own smile. But Yennefer’s eyes soon went back to Tissaia, who was on the verge of a nervous breakdown; the rectoress knew that if she didn’t succeed, she would completely lose Yennefer and she wasn’t willing to let that happen._

_But the battle was done even before it started, for Artorius suggested a vote before Tissaia could say anything more. Luckily, she’d have Vanielle and Francesca by her side, Vilgefortz if he was still trying to woo her hard enough so he would let it move into their duties. But four votes —Sheala finally voted in her favor—, when she would have to refrain herself as Artorius did, were not enough against the other six. Yennefer would go to Nilfgaard and Tissaia would be the one telling her about it, taking the blame and just wishing she could do anything to fix that situation. If she wasn’t such a useless woman, maybe she would have been able to protect Yennefer, to stay true to her word, to give her Aedrin._

"No, my lord, not yet. But she'll come when her friends start dying," said Stregobor.

Yennefer was back in the black and green hallway, her eyes full of tears. She had felt Tissaia’s emotions, she heard what she was thinking during the meeting and she now knew how hard it had been for her… And Yennefer… Yennefer only shouted and complained, she was petty and she blamed everything on Tissaia when all she had done was trying to protect her, to keep her close.

"I'm surprised she has them... Who would want to befriend an insolent mage like that?" The unknown voice began to sound at a much lower volume, until it vanished. Loki dedicated a crooked smile to Tissaia before disappearing, along with the last breath of the dim light that projected Stregobor's scepter, crossing the portal that the sorcerer had opened.

In the cell and the passageways reigned the silence for several minutes, only interrupted by some irregular breathing of Tissaia, her cough or the sound of her blood dripping and falling to the ground. It was almost ten minutes before Bygul gave Yennefer permission to move forward and into the room, warning her to take out her dagger and be on guard.

However, when Yennefer entered the room, the last thing she expected was for a huge wolf —probably as big as her— to pounce on her body with the intention of dismembering her. Bygul transformed in that instant, falling first to the ground and then jumping to attack the creature and throwing it to one side, giving the sorceress a chance to sink the dagger at different points in its anatomy. It was close to her dream, the one she had weeks ago about the wolf that chased the Moon.

Hati shook Bygul off itself with a strong head movement and then pounced on Yennefer again, causing her to fall to the ground violently, both front legs resting on her body, one on her chest and one on her right arm, on which it nailed its claws. The wolf growled, showing her teeth and so close to the woman's face that she began to doubt whether it would not have wrapped her head with its jaw, since its bloody spittle was dripping all above the woman. Hati's breath reeked of acrid and stale, being too warm and intense for the sorceress to withstand inspiring one more breath of air contaminated by such a smell. Bygul again threw herself against the wolf, this time aiming with her fangs just at the area where its ribs ended.

The room was plunged into darkness, so Hati's pitiful whining took Yennefer by surprise. Would those two creatures have vision in the dark and that’s why they could succeed in their attacks? Whatever it was, she didn't have time to waste. With one hand she held Tissaia's pendant, worried about losing it or something happening to it; with the other, she pawed the floor in search of the dagger she had had to let go when Hati had thrown itself at her.

Bygul was the next to growl pitifully when the wolf sank its fangs into one of her legs, tearing down any tissue it found in its wake. Yennefer did not hesitate for a single second and, guided by the impulses that the feline was sending her, she ran with the knife in her hand until sinking it into something soft. She had pointed randomly, but when she moved the weapon to retrieve it, Yennefer realized that the blade was buried in one of the wolf's eyes. Hati continued to move and turn to try to bite the feline or the woman, but the stabbings that Yennefer succeeded in, sinking her steel into the creature's body, and the bites and scratches Bygul gave it ended up slowly and overwhelmingly reducing the creature, until its blood spread in a puddle that covered much of the ground. Yennefer had only a few scratches where the wolf's claws had sunk into her skin, but she was exhausted after that fierce fight with the creature, Bygul was in a worse state, but she had her priorities… She would apologize latter, maybe.

"Tissaia?" Yennefer's voice was just a whisper, as her fingers hurried to look for the necklace that rested on her chest warmly. The lack of response worried the sorceress, but she didn't let that stop her. Taking the risk that doing so implied, Yennefer summoned a magical fire to light up the room, surprised when she was able to control the chaos around her. Dimeritium was all around the room, but not inside —if the chains were excluded—, so probably it was the only reason Stregobor could go in and out freely. So, she could use chaos inside that room, but she wasn't able to get through it in any way, as if it were a bird's cage... Only this time, the bird was chained, hanging from the ceiling with two black chains… How the fuck were they going in and out then?

How they were doing it, she wasn’t going to waste her time thinking about it, not when Tissaia was little more than a bloody corpse right now. Yennefer did not even dare to assume what had been the filthy, raying cloth that hung from Tissaia's body, but that did not prevent her entire body from tightening and her stomach from twisting when she saw what the woman's multiple wounds looked like when enlightened. And not just that. Three daggers had sunk into her chest, a fourth in her stomach, but the woman continued to breathe despite it all —with some difficulty, yes, but still breathing. The sorceress carefully tore off each of the weapons and then checked on Tissaia’s pulse, only to make sure she was still alive and was not some kind of living dead. Not knowing very well what she was doing, Yennefer approached and observed the chains, taking a while to figure out how to open them —for every part of her skin that came into contact with them ended up numb—, but in the end she managed to free Tissaia from them and lower her to theground. Yennefer's arms soon wrapped the rectoress' body protectively, her chin resting on the strands of chestnut hair and tears running down her own cheeks.

"Tissaia de Vries, don't you dare die in my arms, do you hear me?" Yennefer's voice sounded so broken, fragile and frightened, that even with sealed eyelids, Tissaia's eyes soon filled with tears too.

In her mind, the young woman could imagine the rectoress scolding her for leaving a person who had various open wounds on a shit-covered floor, but she was too afraid to hurt her by holding her or tying to move her. However, Bygul seemed much less concerned about it, as she approached both and instructed Yennefer to carry the woman on her back to get out of there as soon as possible. She didn’t want to. She wasn’t going to. No, Yennefer was not letting go the love of her life now that she had found her. It was highly unlikely that the sorceress could find a way to channel enough chaos to open a portal or cure Tissaia in that horrible place, so the most viable option was to return to the surface and get away from the ruins and the dimeritium.

For the first time all day, Yennefer did not bother to accept anything that was being ordered and lifted Tissaia from the floor, her wounds aching and starting to bleed, where Hati had nailed its claws and fangs. Bygul followed her silently down the aisles, while they both moved on the darkness once again, not arguing with the sorceress choice. None said anything at all. Both Bygul and Yennefer crossed the stairwell threshold and began to move away from the sickening ruins. The sorceress had not been allowed to let her emotions consume her, but anyone with minimal sensitivity to chaos could notice how it swirled around her, scrambled and dangerous for anyone who came closer than they should have. And, despite the dangerous energy all around her, Tissaia was kept on the eye of the storm, safe between Yennefer arms for she wouldn’t ever hurt her by purpose —not again, at least. The dark-haired woman’s arms were getting tired and numb, but she refused to drop Tissaia or to let her go; and soon, Yennefer’s arms weren’t the only thing that started to lack strength. The two women and the creature put more than three kilometers away between them and the ruins, before the mage stopped and fell on her knees, careful enough so Tissaia wouldn’t suffer from the movement. Bygul went to the closest tree and took shettele in its shade, while looking at the couple. Carrying Tissaia when one of her arms was virtually useless because of the wound Hati had left on it, had been too much for her —probably haven’t eaten in two days and have drunk a lot also could have something to do— and she wouldn’t be able to carry Tissaia for much longer, so it was best to stop before slumping and risk crushing the sorceress. They had been walking straight to a river that ran silently and widened in an area near where they were now, so Yennefer would find it easy to take Tissaia and move her there to clean her wounds as soon as she recovered her breath. Meanwhile, she let her cloak on the ground, holding Tissaia tight to her body with one arm, and then laid the woman above it with great care. She didn’t look at the creature that was staring at them, while licking its own leg.

"I can smell your anger, sorceress," the feline remarked, as the brunette crouched down to caress Tissaia's cheek carefully.

The rector was conscious, but she had closed her eyes and preferred to ignore the presence of the woman and the blue creature; she wouldn't be fooled a second time, not like that.

"You fucking told me she was dead," Yennefer growled, then she moved her arms to take Tissaia’s body again and walked to the river, carrying the other woman with such delicacy that she only reinforced the rectoress's idea about Loki and Stregobor inducing some hallucination or illusion in her mind a second time. Yennefer stopped in front of the water and took a deep breath, before letting her voice become much softer when whispering, "surely the water is freezing, but the sooner we clean your wounds, the better. I am sorry for this, but it can’t wait until we get back".

Despite her soft voice and words, no answer came back and Yennefer was starting to worry. She could feel the woman thinking and wanting to flee, but she didn’t understand what she had done wrong for making Tissaia want to run away from her.

_‘¿Tissaia?’_

Again, the young woman got no answer from the rectoress. Part of her mind told her that it was because of how hard the last few weeks had been for the chestnut, but another part was deeply concerned that she had discovered her feelings and that it was her way of rejecting her, so as not to hurt her feelings too much. She used no more words, not even to answer Bygul back, for she knew the creature was right; she was starting to feel cold and alone again, despite the heat of Tissaia’s pendant, for her body barely had blood.

"No, I told you I'd take you to her body," the feline settled down and watched Yennefer finally enter the river, carrying the other woman with her and slowly lowering the body.

The water soon dyed red around the two women. Tissaia strained every time the water or Yennefer touched her in some new area; the water was very cold and Yennefer’s touch, despite gently, was enough to intensify the pain over and over. When the wounds were grazed by the cold current, dirt and blood began to take off from the rectoress body, with difficulty, so Yennefer tore her dress and used a piece of cloth to clean the woman’s face and some of the less affected areas; she didn’t want to put her finger on the wound, but she’d have to in order to clean them the better she could, so she discarded the cloth and ripped her dress again to obtain a new one. That bath wasn't going to leave Tissaia clean and relaxed, but it would take much of the blood and infection that spread throughout her body.

At first, Yennefer had merely held Tissaia carefully, but eventually her hands had begun to move around the body, first to finish separating the remains of dirty cloth from her body —being as careful as she could— then to rub Tissaia's arms, face and neck, thus helping the water to take away the dirt. Finally, her hands ended up stroking the woman's torso and back, her eyes always fixed on the rector's unexpressive face. The bath didn't last long, as the water was freezing and there was no point in getting Tissaia out of her cage to make her froze dead in a river. Yennefer surrounded the chestnut's hips with one arm and passed the other under her knees a third time, holding her in her arms to get her out of the water and back to where Bygul was watching them and her cloak still laid on the ground. Carefully, she put Tissaia down on the cloak and wrapped the black cloth around her, carefully.

"You also told me that her heart had been ripped off," the woman growled, looking at the feline.

Bygul looked at Tissaia and then closed her eyes, making a movement close to a shrug.

"Haven't you, rectoress?"

Yennefer felt Tissaia's body strain in response, so she tried to channel her emotions and control the chaos around her to make her own dress dry, while invoking one of the chestnut garments. She could not avoid the choice —a red dress with a round neck and shiny stones on the shoulders, it’s back open to the lower back—, because Tissaia's image with that garment never left her mind. However, instead of placing the garment on her, Yennefer knelt on the ground and concentrated on the place around them, the palms of her hands perched on the grass. She would use all her chaos without thinking twice, so she closed her eyes and began to absorb all the chaos, all the life, that surrounded them, except that of Bygul and Tissaia. The flowers began to wither, the ground cracked as the grass died and at least three or four trees dried instantly; meanwhile, Tissaia's worst injuries began to heal very slowly and not enough —for Yennefer’s thoughts, at least, but the woman wouldn’t be in danger for a while, if she was careful; they just needed to find more mages and healers… They needed Triss—, but the brunette had no more strength to continue, her chaos and the one around her had been spent with that poorly healing spell. Her nose and ears bled from the damage caused by manipulating so much chaos, without any help beyond the source from which she was absorbing it, but it had been worth it. She would give her life and the whole Continent in exchange of Tissaia's, one and a thousand times.

_'That idea is stupid.'_

With her breath shaking, Yennefer offered the dress to the other woman and turned around so as not to look while she got dressed. She smiled at Tissaia's thought, unable to deny that it was probably a stupid idea, but it was still something she was willing to do.

"When you said that a good mage would never take her heart into battle..." Yennefer whispered, stopping when a thought made it to her mind. It took her a few more seconds to realize that, if she took Bygul's words into account, Tissaia had literally said what was the reason she wasn’t dead and… She literally meant it when she said they would do better if they just abandoned her feelings and heart before going to Sodden. Yennefer turned to look at the rectoress, suddenly worried. How was she alive if she had no heart?

"I don't have to talk to someone who doesn't exist," the chestnut muttered, before turning her head to look at the river and giving her back on the young woman.

She wasn't going to do anything to cooperate, Yennefer knew that. No wonder she was ignoring her from the beginning, if she thought that she wasn't real, that she wasn't there and that she would just be a product of her mind or Loki himself posing as the woman for a second time. That was what made Yennefer realize it was too late. She had taken too long, Tissaia had lost any hope of someone caring enough to go find her, she felt abandoned, lonely, sad and hopeless; the woman she loved had never show her more than hate and bitter, her best friend was dead and she wasn’t with her when she passed, her ex cheated on her and made sure to be caught by her in their own bed, some of her girls had died because she took them to Sodden… And then, there were those feelings and thoughts about a little girl, about a happy life, about…

_'I'm real, please, Tissaia.'_

Yennefer looked at the rectoress begging, but the chestnut didn't move a single muscle. Bygul had opened her eyes again, this time with concern. Yennefer was unwilling to give in, so she sat next to Tissaia and took her hand as gently as possible, surprised to notice how cold her skin was. She covered the woman's limb with her two hands in an attempt to warm her up and rested her head on the rectoress’ shoulder, careful not to hurt her and closing her eyes for a moment. Tissaia smelled of blood, while the vanilla and oak impregnated in her garment were subtle, but there. It was Tissaia, she was alive, and she'd be alright. She will make her be alright.

Tears began to spill down Yennefer's cheeks silently and her left hand found the pendant on her chest again, clinging to it carefully. Her warmth was as pleasant as Tissaia's presence by her side and pretty much everything she needed to stop her body from combating the need to release all her emotions. First it was her shoulders, which began to tremble with every sob that left her throat, but soon the rest of her limbs joined and began to shake with the rest of her body. It had been so scary and it had hurt so so so much to think that Tissaia was dead and that she had not been able to protect her, that it was her fault.. Now all she could do was to surrender all control to her emotions. She had gone to Sodden for Tissaia, because she could not live with the thought of letting her go alone to a war in which she could only lose; because she needed to know that she had done everything possible to protect her. To think that she had not only disappointed her, but also failed her...

_'Yennefer would never think such a thing, you should improve your imitation.'_

_'I'm not an imitation, Tissaia, it's me, I am not one of their tricks.'_

The rectoress turned her head again, refusing even to look at her. How the hell was she listening to what she was thinking? She was not transferring her thoughts, not with the amount of dimeritium left in her body, even if the chains had been removed.

_'I don't care if you don't want to talk to me, if you'd rather pretend that I don't exist or that I'm not even real. But I promised you I'd take you home and that's what I am going to do,'_ although she doubted that the woman would have been paying attention when she thought it, a promise was a promise and she was going to stay true to her word.

Tissaia frowned, confused at hearing Yennefer's voice in her mind again, annoyed by Loki's insistence on impersonating the woman she loved. She was completely certain that the false Yennefer had also not transferred her thoughts, for she had not perceived the chaos reorganizing around her, not as when she had invoked the dress or dried her garments, but that was impossible because Loki could not use any kind of connection remotely similar to the one that linked her and the young woman… But probably, she couldn’t really feel any chaos due to the dimeritium and the last time was just a mistake made by one of her maulers.

Tissaia lowered her gaze to perch it on her own lap, in Yennefer's hands still covering one of hers as if afraid of letting her go. In the course of that movement, however, her eyes encountered a golden pendant resting on Yennefer's chest, hanging from her neck in an old golden chain. Realizing this, the younger woman took one of her hands to the crest, in a completely instinctive gesture, as if she sought to protect it from its own owner. With difficulty, Tissaia moved her free hand —the other still captive by Yennefer's— to rest it on the brunette’s, on the pendant. Yennefer's hands were warm and felt real, but... So had the Yennefer and Melody of her mind, which Loki had used to play with her and to try to obtain information —one that her subconscious kept without her being fully aware of it—, so that meant nothing.

Tissaia closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to take those stupid thoughts out of her head. That wasn't Yennefer. That wasn't her Yennefer.

_Bum. Bum. Bum_.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry it took me years to translate this one, but I thank you all so much for your patience <333
> 
> TW: wounds, suicidal toughts/intentions/implied.

_Bum. Bum. Bum._

It wasn't possible. If that was not her Yennefer, there was no way she had become in possession of that object within her mind, not even Stregobor and Artorius joining forces could break down the deepest barriers of her mind —and they had tried before Sodden. But then… Yennefer was real? Could she…?

The doubt was planted in the head of the rectoress, for it had passed more than two centuries since Tissaia had decided that carrying her heart where it belonged was a very dangerous thing that could cause the unnecessary and premature death of her own person. So she decided that it would be best to rip the heart off her chest and carry it with her, hanging from her neck and just a few inches above where it should be. That way, if someone tried to kill her legitimately, they could do so, but back stabbed and treason poisonings would serve their enemies very little —again, Stregobor could relate to the last two options. Thus Tissaia had managed to be one of the few sorceresses older than four centuries who were still walking through The Continent fearless to her death. However, not even Rita or Vanielle —her former and her now-dead best friends— knew she had done something like this, so the possibility that Loki had discovered it, even after he had managed to overcome the first barriers of her mind, was virtually impossible.

Moreover, not even Tissaia had realized until that moment that Aretuza's crest, her heart, was resting on the dark-haired woman. It was ironic that it was Yennefer who had her heart now —considering it was something that had always belonged to her and that she had taken without asking nor realizing a long time ago in a more metaphorical way of speaking—, but if that was the case, if she had it in the real world, part of Tissaia felt at peace; she would not trust anyone else to have it, and for that reason all the protections of the pendant were arranged so that only Yennefer could see and take it. For another person or creature it would have been impossible to see through the glamour she had placed around the necklace —keeping it invisible unless someone was wearing it— preventing anyone but Tissaia or Yennefer from touching it or noticing it's existence. Now that Tissaia thought about it, she hadn't accidentally left the pendant behind. She may have been convinced that Yennefer was dead or that nothing she did would serve to get her back, but when Hati broke into her quarters, her subconscious made the decision to leave her heart behind —just as she had left Yennefer behind—, hoping that she could one day return and continue the search for her former student. If Tissaia had died, she would not have been able to find Yennefer, bring her back from wherever she was; she couldn't pay off the debt she had to her former student; couldn't solve her death, fix her own mistake.

"I'm not dead, Tissaia," the violet eyes stared at her, while the brunette's hand was still holding the pendant in a protective way, "and even if I were, that would never be your fault".

Tissaia frowned, she didn't understand how it was possible for her to know what she thought, she hadn't noticed chaos around her and the dimeritium of her body was still too much to facilitate any magic, —which had caused her wounds not to heal at all—, much less unnoticed magic. Yennefer would probably be Loki messing with her mind, after all.

"I tried to tell you the last time we spoke, but I still don't quite understand how our connection works," the way Yennefer's voice sounded so fragile and fearful, as her fingers caressed the crest of the school tenderly, gave the other woman a shiver. Confusing the gesture with a sign that she was cold —which was, actually, true—, Yennefer concentrated and had a second cloak appear on her lap. Blood sprouted with more abundance from her ears and nose, beginning to spill also from her eyes. She was exhausted, but she didn't mind losing consciousness or dying out of tiredness if that made Tissaia feel warmer and better. The cape was dark and had grey hair on top; the first time Yennefer had seen it, the rectoress had terrified her after buying her for four marks, now, she couldn't imagine any other garments to keep her warm. With shaky hands, Yennefer grabbed the cloak and placed it on Tissaia's shoulders, ignoring the sore way she was looking at her, knowing that she still considered her little more than a hallucination, "Sabrina said we were eadem. Rita wants to keep us under observation and Triss asked if we were like unicorns," Yennefer's lips curved with some affection when you thought of her friends, "you're probably going to say it's not possible, Rita did, but…"

"It would actually be the only explanation that would make sense, if you were real," Tissaia added, hiding inside the cloak; at least her mind decided to give her useful information... Of course, seeing Yennefer doing idiotic things and hurting herself just so she wouldn't be cold was as painful as a physical attack and she was sure Loki knew that.

"I don't do stupid things! Besides, since when do you care what happens to me?" Yennefer tried to stand up, outraged, but her legs failed her and she fell on her knees when she managed to raise.

Hallucination or not, Tissaia was unable to stare and do nothing, so she moved quickly to hold her and prevent her from falling to the ground. She helped her sit down again and frowned, unaccustomed to that extra get way to know what was going on in her former student's mind.

"One more thought about how pleasant my hands are on your body and I throw you in the river, Yennefer," the rectoress frowned, and the young woman smiled sideways. Tissaia hadn't tried to read her mind, but she knew what exactly was going through her head at the time, "and not that you mind since you're not real, but I've always cared".

"It's like... Being inside our heads, but without paying attention to the voice of our mind. It's not like the transference of thoughts, it's more of a feeling," Yennefer explained when _hearing_ her uncertainty, but she looked away when Tissaia said she cared, seriously doubting it.

Tissaia's expression became darker when she felt the woman's doubt. Yennefer took a hand back to the pendant and caressed it tenderly, the rectoress wondered if the young mage would know what she was actually touching. If so, why did she treat it so carefully? Why hadn't she nailed a dagger or sold it? There were surely a lot of people willing to buy it.

"I've tried to think of other things so I wouldn't listen when you thought about the pendant, I know how much you value your privacy and I'm being pretty invasive all the time," the young woman snorted, answering her last questions with it.

"The real Yennefer would never have cared about my preferences. I don't know how you think such a pitiful imitation can help you to torture me further," that said, Tissaia let go of the brunette's arms and stood up to get away from her. The woman walked to the riverbank and observed its flow in silence, struggling to keep the little heat that her body generated and the cloak kept inside.

_'The real Yennefer is exhausted,'_ the brunette followed the rectoress with her gaze and stuck her violet orbs on the other woman's back. Her eyesight was again blurred by tears, but her body was unwilling to use the little energy ir ket had left to get her to where Tissaia was. She'd need to try harder if she wanted to reach her, _'I've spent weeks locked up, hidden from Stregobor and not being able to look for you. Knowing that I was your only option, but without being able to help in any way... And after two weeks of silence I thought you were dead, that you left me without even saying goodbye!'_

_'That's where you're wrong. I did say good-bye to Yennefer, impostor.'_

_'No, you didn't,'_ Yennefer was about to collapse when she grabbed Tissaia's arm and pulled it to force the woman to look at her. At least she had managed to stand up and get close to her, even if she was close to faint, _'don't you dare say that it was a farewell… Don't you fucking dare.'_

When the rectoress moved her arm sharply to free it from Yennefer's grip, the young woman's body staggered like a leaf moved by the wind and rushed forward, too conscious of her body falling, but too weak to prevent it. Unable to let her fall, once again, Tissaia wrapped both arms around her former student's thin body. If that was the real Yennefer, it made sense that she was upset with her, right? But if it was her mind, it would just be Loki trying to make her feel guilty while digging in her very open wounds. But why was the possibility that Yennefer was real, that she had actually been saved, beginning to be seriously considered on her mind? Maybe because of what the brunette had said. Tissaia was tired too. She had fought —The Chapter, Nilfgaard, Loki—, she had suffered —the dimeritium, the torture, her father's abuse—, she had lost —Vanielle, Rita, Melody and Yennefer—… What was it all for? All she wanted was to close her eyes with Yennefer in her arms, even if it meant not waking up again.

Weak arms surrounded her torso then, forcing her to press her body against that of the young woman and change the grip, which had merely held Yennefer by her elbows, so that her own hands would surround the brunette's waist and keep her standing. It was clear that the young woman was very close to collapse and had used far more chaos than she could afford. Maybe if she jumped into the river with her, it would all be over... But even if that Yennefer wasn't real, she could not hurt her.

"No," the brunette growled, her eyes closed and her face buried against the other woman's shoulder. The sensitivity of her entire body had been significantly reduced since she had held Tissaia in her arms and the cold began to take over the young mage.

_'We're not going to die. Not like this. Not here. Not now.'_

_'What do you care? You don't have to come with me, you're not even real. I've lost you twice, what do I care about losing you one more time?'_

_'Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your gods my gods. Wherever you die, I will die there, and there I will be buried. May the gods punish me, and ever so severely, if anything but death parts me from you'._

When Yennefer finished her little speech, Tissaia's eyes had widened as much as possible, the surprise and disbelief clearly reflected in her face. Bright tears were moistening her eyes and only a few dared to shed on her cheeks, against the will of the rectoress, reflecting the sunlight in a way that made them look golden. The only time she had heard those words had been at the only wedding she had attended as a five-year-old girl, where her father tried to sell her to anyone willing to give him a few coins to buy more ale. That promise had always been the most beautiful thing she had ever heard, surely the most heartfelt vows she had ever listened to and probably the only thing that could break her further than Loki's illusion. But the thing was that Yennefer knew the words, that she had said them aloud and with enough emotion to crack all the rectoress barriers, that even if it wasn't her Yennefer, she would be her doom…

After all, Yennefer wasn't stupid enough or sentimental enough and she was certainly not in love enough to find herself standing in with her… To have gone looking for her to Nilfgaard, to put her life in danger in such a stupid and unnecessary way… But in a heartbeat she just knew Yennefer was, indeed, stupid, sentimental and in love enough with her to do all those things and even more.

Tissaia looked back at the young woman, despite only meeting her black mane, beginning to accept the possibility that perhaps her former and best student was much stupider than she wanted to recognize. What if…?

_'Hello sweetie,'_ Yennefer bowed her head enough to be able to look Tissaia in the eye. Her face was covered with blood and traces of tears,but her cheeky smile had returned, though softer and weaker.

_'You are so stopping that nonsenses,'_ Tissaia thought —after almost a minute of processing that maybe she was free because the woman she loved had saved her—, confident that somehow the brunette could hear her.

_'What, the nonsenses of the sunset?'_

_'Don't you dare,'_ Tissaia moistened her lips, feeling how her chest felt heavier with every breath and needing to drop a couple of golden tears. How was that possible?

_'I'll have to check with the stars themselves,'_ the brunette's smile widened, despite her exhaustion. She knew she was getting to Tissaia's heart, that she believed her now.

_'Oh, shut up,_ ' she rolled her eyes, trying to control her emotions, but still unable to accept her own mistake, ' _I was just keeping my mind distracted until it kicked off.'_

Yennefer let out a small laugh, although her body was not capable to withstand her weight —even with Tissaia's arms around her— for one more second, her knees bent. The rectoress strengthened her grip around Yennefer's body and slowly crouched down until she was on her knees with the young woman's body tightly hugged and leaning against her lap, the brunette's head on her chest.

_'Yennefer of Vengerberg, don't you dare die in my arms, do you hear me?'_

Had she had enough strength, the young woman would have laughed, but at that moment she could hardly keep her eyes open, her body had lost its strength and was much colder than it should be. Besides, the adrenaline that had kept her active up to that point was snouting. Tissaia took nearly ten seconds to conclude that Yennefer's stupid spending of chaos minutes ago was not the only cause of her state.

With difficulty, the rectoress took Yennefer in her arms and carried her to the cloak she had left on the ground before, for her, laying Yennefer over the cloth. Tissaia removed her own cape and focused all her strength and control for a moment, before placing it on the young woman's body and make sure it would help her preserve enough heat. The physical shape of the chestnut and the amount of dimeritium in her body did not allow her to manipulate a single drop of chaos to help the young woman improve her condition —she had been barely able to summon a stone—, but still, that was not what Yennefer needed. Although she did not like the way the young woman's face twisted or how her eyes quickly filled with tears, Tissaia began to move away from her until she put more than twenty feet away between the two of them. It hurt her to move, to walk and even to breath, but she knew she had to.

_'Come back,_ ' for the first time, Yennefer pleaded instead of demanding what she wanted.

Tissaia stopped and turned around to look at the young woman, still lying on the ground.

_'You know I can't do that,_ ' her lower lip was caught between her teeth with enough strength to open a new wound on it, _'the dimeritium of my body is affecting you too much'._

_'I need you with me.'_

Tissaia started to walk again, moving further away from the brunette, and Bygul stood up to follow her.

_'I'm going to be with you, Yenna, you have my heart in your hand_ ,' even though she smiled, the gesture was sad and bitter, _'I wouldn't trust anyone else to have it and it always belonged to you.'_

Yennefer didn't have the strength nor the mood to think about how gross it could have been if it hadn't been a necklace.

_'Please, Tissaia…'_ Beginning to regain her mobility little by little, Yennefer raised a hand to the necklace and stroked it carefully when she discovered what it really was, tears shed incessantly from her eyes to the ground. _'I can't take care of something like this, I can't... Just come back and take it, stay with me, don't leave me alone again.'_

_'I won't, Rita is running towards you,'_ the chestnut warned, not even needing to turn around to recognize that magical signature.

_'I don't want Rita, I want you, I need you.'_

"Yennefer?!" The blonde knelt next to the young woman and placed a hand on her neck to take her pulse, "by the gods, what happened? You're burning and I can barely feel the chaos in you."

_'There are people destined to be together, Piglet, and people destined to never be...'_ Tissaia moved one of her hands and Yennefer imitated the gesture until she found an inner pocket on the cloak. The brunette frowned, putting her hand in her pocket and taking what was inside of it, as the rectoress continued, _'there is never a moment or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single blinking and throbbing moment. Even for those predestined to meet, change is so quick that many do not realize that hatred or affection became love and that love is stronger than death. You used to wonder why I always treated you the way I did if I cared about you... '_

"Yennefer? Can you hear me? What happened?" Rita was clearly upset, but the brunette wasn't listening to her, she was crying with her eyes closed. Yennefer's body convulsed with sobs and cold.

_'Life is very hard on the Continent for those of us who are not men or nobles, even as a noble everything can be_ _complicated while men are still in charge, if you are not one of them... As rectoress of Aretuza, it is my duty to make sure that my girls can survive in a world of men, that they have the weapons and the ability to defend themselves at any cost, but that they are aware of when they should or not use those weapons. I don't expect to have the affection or gratitude of any of my students, Yennefer, but I do what I do because I think it's the only way to save your lives. I break you first so no one will break you in the future, I can stand guilt as long as I know you all will be fine. Even a life as an eel is much better than a life as unprepared court mage,_ ' Tissaia sat on the ground, taking her knees to her chest and resting her chin on them, while watching Rita and Yennefer in the distance, _'I've always cared about you, even if I wasn't able to show it or you all think otherwise. I am aware that many of you hate me for what I put you through and I can live with your hatred, with what I cannot live with is your death. I don't regret what I did, I just regret the times I put you in unnecessary danger or the deaths I caused.'_ Tissaia used a hand to dry her cheek and set aside some tears that kept falling down them. She knew she shouldn't cry, that she was a monster as her father had always said, but she couldn't help it, _'I'm just sorry I didn't have the courage to tell you all of this before... Or to tell you how I felt about you.'_

Yennefer's right hand wrapped the pendant carefully and her left hand tightened around the stone she had found in her pocket. She hadn't seen it yet, but her connection to Tissaia allowed her to know what it was and what it meant, even if the chestnut continued to stay away from her.

_'If you want to do it, don't act like a coward bitch_ ,' Yennefer turned to one side and placed herself in a fetal position, carrying the stone's hand to her face to place it in front of her.

_'If I approach you, you will die, Yennefer,'_ Tissaia tried to swallow the knot in her throat, as tears ran freely down her cheeks now, _'you've_ wasted _too much chaos and now I'm more toxic to you than I've ever been before… And we both know how much it was.'_

_'I'll die if you walk further_ away,' the brunette cried.

It might seem like Yennefer was exaggerating, but the pain she felt was as real as the cold that embraced her couple of minutes ago. Something wasn't right and neither of them had the slightest idea what it was. Tissaia could feel the pain in her own body too, yes, but it wasn't new or strange to her.

"You're too hot, Yennefer," the blonde tried to put a hand on her forehead and start healing whatever affected her, but she had to push it away instantly. At any other time, the young mage would have said that she knew she was pretty hot, but right then she just wanted Tissaia to come back. Not knowing what to do, Rita knelt next to the young woman until she heard the sound of someone slowly walking in their direction. The blonde didn't even bother to use her chaos to identify the person approaching her before she caught up with them, breathless. How Yennefer had managed to find Tisssia, rescue her, probably heal her and piss her off —Rita couldn't think about any other reason why she would have walked away in such a pitiful state—, was beyond her knowledge. Despite the remarkable smell of blood, the slight aroma of vanilla and oak reached the woman's nose, which whispered without even raising her sight. "What happened?"

"I'm back," Tissaia, ignoring Rita, whispered the most gently and warmly she could, moving Yennefer so that her head would rest again on her lap. The young sorceress was burning in such a way that not even the fabric of the dress mitigated the temperature of her face, "Yennefer, I'm here, you have to control your emotions, don't let them consume you".

Tissaia placed her hands on either side of the young woman's head to cool her down, aware that the dimeritium in her body would soon absorb that stupid amount of chaos that Yennefer was unconciously releasing, despite the fact that she was supposed to be empty by now. Rita took a little longer to understand what was going on, but as soon as she did, she looked at Tissaia with a frown.

"Get her to sleep"

"I can't control my chaos, Margarita. I know that's the safest way, I am no idiot," the woman's voice was so cold and shearing that the blonde leaned slightly back, hurt.

"No," Yennefer dropped the stone from her hand so he could hold on to Tissaia's dress, wanting to keep her from moving away. The cold was returning to her body, but the amount of chaos she was consuming was beginning to be vital.

_'I promise I won't stay away from you any more than I have to, but if you don't calm down, we have to.'_

_'You're going to leave again, to leave me like everybody else does.'_

Tissaia leaned forward, until her forehead was resting against that of the brunette.

_'It was you the one who always abandoned me, Piglet,'_ a single golden tear fell from Tissaia's nose to Yennefer's cheek, _'Aretuza_ , _Rinde, Sodden...'_

Rita stared at both of them in complete silence. She had never seen Tissaia crying before, so even a tear was too much for her to handle; letting aside the fact that it was, in fact, closer to liquid gold than to salty water was not overlooked by the blonde. She had read about those kind of things, as she had read about eadem, unicorns and golden dragons.

_'I've crossed the whole continent twice for you, Tissaia. All you had to do was ask for me.'_

_'I asked you to come back to Rinde.'_

_'Rinde was the worst mistake of my life, I shouldn't have tried that hard to hate you.'_

_'Don't let this take you away from me, then,'_ Tissaia left a kiss on Yennefer's forehead and looked at Rita, _'I'll be by your side when you wake up.'_

"Do it".

Rita looked up —after seeing Tisssaia's tear, her eyes had ended up fixed on the stone Yennefer had released— and nodded only once, before reciting the enchantment in elder and beginning to channel her own chaos. After so many years, she was not surprised that Tissaia had developed feelings for someone else, but that didn't mean she hadn't been jealous when the rectoreds had paid more attention to someone other than her fifty years ago. It made sense, of course, when it was the other half of her soul who inevitably attracted her, but she wasn't expecting that —as far as she could see—, she would have given Yennefer that rune. It was… Very unbecoming of Tissaia. Too impulsive, not thought enough, almost irresponsible.

The rune in question consisted of an X-shaped mark, with one of the lines shorter than the one that cut it. It was carefully carved on a blessed moonstone and oozed chaos everywhere, so it was clear it wasn't an accident that it had ended up in Yennefer's hand.

Tissaia picked up the stone and saved it back in one of the cloak's pockets, while the blonde ended the spell. Yennefer had ended up calming down enough for the chaos around her to stabilize and Tissaia would be forced to move a few feet away from the brunette again, but not too much so the distance wouldn't start hurting them again. Rita herself was starting to breathe with difficulty because of her presence, so the best thing she could do was stay as far away as possible and make sure that she could take Yennefer somewhere safe.

As Tissaia continued to retreat, a portal opened near Yennefer and Rita. The chestnut was unable to perceive all the changes in chaos —still partially nullified by the dimeritium—, and the other sorceress busy breathing and watching the rectoress curiously, did not realize what was going on until a man with a half smile crossed through the opening in space, watching them three with satisfaction.

"Now, dears, I was looking for you".


End file.
